The Second Arrow #howyogaworks

I’m late and pedaling furiously on my bike to get somewhere.

My heart pounds and my mind races, berating myself for being late, again.

I finally arrive, irritated, dejected, and breathless.

This was me all the time a few years ago, but my yoga practice has shown me there had to be a better way. Could I bike quickly without rushing? Could I be late for an appointment without self-flagellating all the way there?

This impatience and irritability is like “the second arrow,” a Buddhist concept that says that we cause ourselves more suffering by lamenting about the way things are. We get shot by a circumstance we can’t control: that’s the first arrow. Then instead of shooting out, where it may have some efficacy, we turn our weapons around on ourselves: that’s the second arrow.

Is this metaphor clear? The first arrow (I'm late for my appointment) is a situation I can’t control.  Yes, I could do better with time management to prevent this situation in the first place, but once I'm pedaling furiously, there's no changing the circumstance. I can't set the clock back ten minutes. 

The second arrow is when I get angry and impatient with myself. I suffer mentally and emotionally, and that’s the second arrow.

We may not be able to change the circumstances, but we can change how we react to them.

Being late is the first arrow. Berating myself for my untimely habits is the second.

And it turns out, I can go fast without suffering! I can bike quickly but breathe slowly. I can imagine that I’m a kid again, flying like the wind, carefree and joyful. Going quickly can be exhilarating instead of exhausting.  

The second arrow is optional. 

Look around this week. Where are you shooting yourself twice? Can you accept things as they are? Would you suffer less if you did?

Much love,

Bear

Hopelessly Flawed {Why I Tell Lies, Part Four}

Hello dear ones,

I spent the last three weeks telling you about how I’m liar-liar-pants-on-fire--or rather, how I wasn’t one for 40 days. The most common response I’ve gotten about these last three posts from students, friends, and readers has been how much people appreciated the fact that I went public about my daily fibs.

“When I saw your post my first thought was, Nah, I don’t lie. But then I read it and thought, Oh, actually, yeah I do. And then I thought, ‘I can’t believe she’s talking about that.’”

“I loved what you had to say today, but notice that I’m not jumping up to tell everybody all my bad habits. Nope, I’ll just leave that to you.”

I tell you this not to toot my own horn, but to bring up something larger, more complicated, and potentially more important. The resounding refrain was that it is meaningful to people to hear me talk about my flaws in a concrete, outright way. It is apparently pretty refreshing to hear me describe the particular ways that I am effing things up.

We might have a problem with untruthfulness, but we definitely have a problem with vulnerability. We are afraid of our flaws.

I know you don’t buy into the perfect, edited versions of other people’s lives that social media shows us, where every eyelash is precisely curled and we’re all on perpetual beach vacation. But isn’t this pretty much what we do in daily life? Most of the time we run around presenting the badly photoshopped version of ourselves to the world, the self that is hoarding all our issues and problems, holding them close so no one else can see.

This isn’t an RSVP to the pity party. On the contrary, this is about the life that’s waiting for you when you start showing up as your imperfect, unedited self. It is terrifying as hell to live truthfully as your whole, deeply wounded, figuring-it-out-as-you-go-along self. But it is also wildly empowering.

Show up as the liar who’s learning to speak truth, or the jaded artist who wants to be less cynical, or the intense type-A perfectionist who is trying to loosen up. Own the fact that you have a hard time getting out of bed sometimes. Say out loud that you’re struggling to pay rent, or quit drinking, or heal your broken heart.

Tell the truth about who you are right now, today. That is a radical act.

Much love,

Bear

Why I Tell Lies, Part 3 {Practicing Satya}

Hello dear ones,

This is the third in a series of posts about cultivating Satya, the yogic concept of truthfulness. I “gave up” lying for the 40 days of Lent, and I noticed myself lying in three scenarios: for expediency, out of embarrassment, and when I don’t know what the truth is. When I don’t know the truth, I blurt out a lie instead of saying “I don’t know.”

Sometimes I’ll answer with what I assume is the truth, or what I can guess that the truth might be, or what I wish was true. But if I were being really honest, I simply don’t know. The real kicker is that when I pretend that I already know, I close myself off from learning. I must first admit that I don’t know in order to gain any new knowledge.

I think this tendency has been around in me for a long while. I had a reputation as a know-it-all when I was younger. I worked hard to make sure I was rarely in a position where I might have to admit not knowing something, to myself or anyone else. I’ve done a whole lot of self-reflection in this regard and have (hopefully) improved over time, and yet, I still lie about it.

It takes a humble heart to admit that you don’t know everything.

In my role as a yoga teacher particularly (where I show up as my best self), I now have the humility to say that I don’t have an answer. When a student asks a question I’m not sure of, I say, “I’ll look that up,” or “I’ll ask my teacher.” This has taken practice, and is a continual work in progress.

Watch yourself this week and notice when you default to guesses or assumptions. Do you have some resistance to admitting what you don’t know? Practice humility instead, and see if that makes space to learn something new.

Much love,

Bear

Why I Tell Lies, Part 2 {Practicing Satya}

Hello dear ones,

For Lent I gave up lying. I had become aware of myself telling lies over the past few months.  While it would be easy to brush them aside as simply little white lies, lying gave me that undeniable internal hiss of being out of alignment with myself.

You know that feeling when you step out of your integrity, or when you momentarily waver off course? I had been noticing it more often, which thankfully, I can attribute to an increased awareness more than an increase in untruthfulness.

The Yoga Sutras say that when you become aligned with truthfulness, everything you say comes true.

I noticed three main reasons why I lie, the first of which is for expediency, which I addressed last week. The second trend I noticed in my untruthful habits was resorting to lying when I feel embarrassed.

This one is pretty straightforward: I lie when I am ashamed of what the truth is. In order to protect myself from feeling ashamed in the presence of someone else, I hide the truth so that I only have to feel ashamed in front of me. This is not a very effective tactic, because turns out, shame feels pretty crappy even for an audience of one, and shame has a tendency to show up for the even smallest offenses.

For example, I apparently have some shame about my sleeping habits. I’m a night owl, often staying up til 2 am and sleeping until 10am. (Or up til 3 and sleeping til 11, if I was being really honest. I just made myself type that because I found myself lying again. Like, oh god, will everyone judge me if they know I stay up until 3 am? I’m a work-in-progress.)

I am ashamed of this fact on some level, because I often lie to my partner about what time I went to sleep or woke up. He’s the only person who ever really asks about it, and there is truly no reason why he would judge me about it.

And yet, when he says, “How’d you sleep? What time did you get up?” I often feel impelled to say, “Oh I went to bed at midnight and got up at 8.”  I also noticed that I would sometimes even lie just a tiny bit, “I went to bed at 2 and got up at 10,” I would say, when the truth was I went to bed at 2:30 and slept til 10:45.

The antidote to shame is vulnerability. (Props to Brene Brown.)  Over the course of the last 40 days, I had many opportunities to face the truth, to say honestly, “I went to sleep at 3:15 and I slept until 11,” and to face, not my lover’s scorn (which of course does not exist) but my own derision. There is vulnerability, and with it, the opportunity to meet myself with acceptance and compassion.

Look around this week for the ways that you are lying because of shame. Can you choose instead to step vulnerably towards the truth?

Much love,

Bear

P.S. If you like what I write, sign up for weekly blog posts direct to your inbox by clicking here or filling in the form below!

Why I Tell Lies, Part 1 {Practicing Satya}

Hello dear ones,

For Lent I gave up lying. Now, I was never a particularly pathological liar, but I once I started paying attention I did find myself lying daily. You might too if you started looking for it. There are ten practices for ethical living laid out in the Yoga Sutras, and satya, translated as truthfulness, is number two, second only to non-violence.

I noticed three main reasons why I lie, which I’ll talk about over the coming weeks. The first is for expediency, as in, I lie when it takes too long to tell the truth. So instead of giving all the details in a story, I’ll just condense everything into something much shorter but slightly less true.

And at first I thought that maybe this doesn’t matter. What’s the big deal? Isn’t that just a technicality? But rather than argue about whether this matters or not, I decided to dig deeper and identify where this habit came from.

As far as I can tell, lying for expediency relates to two things. One, a lack of patience, which comes from two, a sense of lack of time. As in, I feel like I don’t have enough time, so I get impatient and start telling lies.

So in response to this, I’ve been cultivating patience, and a sense of abundance when it comes to time. I’ve been slowing down, and really noticing when I’m rushing, when I can’t bother to tell the whole story.

And then I ask myself, is it true that I don’t have enough time? What will I lose if I stop and tell the whole truth, or tell the whole story? And more importantly, what might I lose if I rush away after spouting a half-truth?

This week look for the places where you are impatient, where you feel like you don’t have enough time, and look for the ways that you’re cheating yourself out of a whole experience. Can you cultivate a sense of abundance? Can you slow it all down?

And if you like what I write, sign up for weekly blog posts direct to your inbox by clicking here or filling in the form below!

Much love,

Bear

How To Grow Your Yoga Practice {Hint: It's Like a Garden, Sort Of}

I kept a beautiful plot in a community garden some years ago. I loved that space. It felt golden and secluded at the end of a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood. There were vegetables and citrus and sometimes flowers. I felt at home there.

And then I got busy. I signed on to art projects. I found a second job. It was out of my way to go to the garden: I had to make a special trip. Days went by, then weeks.

Eventually I quit going altogether. I just gave up. I felt embarrassed, lazy, and defeated.

Does this sound familiar? This happens to SO MANY yoga students. You get excited for a little bit, enticed by the poses, the rigors of the process, the changes you can see happening in body and mind. You attend classes weekly for six months, maybe a year or more.

And then, life happens. A new relationship, a new job, a new neighborhood. Something shifts and suddenly it feels impossible to make it to class. The practice of showing up is the simplest undertaking and also the most difficult.

LEAPS+BOUNDS helps to stave off this inadvertent neglect. When you sign up in advance and pay your hard-earned money up front, you make a commitment to me and to yourself. You say, I’m going to show up, even when it’s inconvenient and tiring and I’d rather go home and drink wine in a mason jar and watch Mozart in the Jungle on my laptop. (Maybe that’s just me?)

There are a few spots left for LEAPS+BOUNDS: Bird of Paradise. You don’t have to be strong, flexible or fancy. You only have to be committed and consistent.

Classes begin this Monday, and I’d love to have you there. Click here to register: http://bearteachesyoga.org/leapsandbounds

Much love,

Bear

P.S. Not sure if you’re a good fit for LEAPS+BOUNDS? Send me an email at dearbearhebert@gmail.com with your questions or concerns and we’ll suss it out together. 

Aging Gracefully {Trading Intimidation for Inspiration}

Hello dear ones,

Last week I participated in a 5-day intensive yoga workshop which pretty much blew my mind.  I’ve been practicing yoga for almost ten years now, which is short in the span of the universe, but quite long in the span of my life.

My focus has never been on having an impressive physical practice, but after ten years of practice, when I show up to a yoga class, I’m not generally the most advanced student, but I’m generally not the least advanced either.

In the weeks leading up to the workshop, I started to feel intimidated by the caliber of people I knew would be in the room, both the teacher and the other practitioners. These are folks in their 60s, 70s and 80s who are immensely capable in their physical practice, and stable in their minds as well.

So I felt humbled and a little scared to be in this room with people who have been studying and practicing yoga for longer than I’ve been alive. Would I be able to keep up? What if I couldn’t do the poses? Was I actually qualified to be here?

But once I actually got into the space, I was instantly relieved. My fellow students were kind and welcoming, and I had a profound shift in thinking. Stop feeling intimidated by these rockstar elders, I said to myself, and start feeling INSPIRED.

How amazing to see bodies that have grown stronger with age rather than weaker? These are people who have become more and more alive, engaged, grounded, and centered as the years have passed instead of sliding into unsteadiness and instability.

What a thing to behold, and what a thing to aspire towards.

Look around this week for the people who are further along in their path than you, whether it’s a supervisor at work, an artist with a more prestigious career, or that yogi next to you flawlessly handstanding before class even starts. What can you learn from them? How can you grow from being in their presence? Can you see them in the light of inspiration instead of intimidation?

Who are you intimidated by? Could you be inspired by them instead? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment to let me know!

Much love,

Bear

Conversating With My Mother

Look at these people conversing! Or are they conversating? 

Talking with my mom recently, she said, “You know what I hate? When people say conversate.They sound so foolish! Don’t they know that’s not a real word?!?! The word is converse!”

And I laughed. I LOVE words, and grammar, and rules, and being right, so things like conversate used to really get my feathers ruffled. But because of a peculiar combination of yoga and linguistics, I’m much more open to seeing conversate as a part of a long lineage of words that came to be words because people said them. I'm more curious these days about WHY people say what they say than which words they choose.

So I said, “Mom! Who said conversate can’t be a word?” And she replied, “Well, Daniel Webster, of course!!” “But Ma, who cares what he said? He’s just some old dead white guy!” “But he’s a linguist! He wrote the dictionary!”

Time to try a different approach.

“Ma, how do you feel when you think that people shouldn’t say conversate?”

“Oh, I don’t know, judgemental I guess. Maybe grouchy.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. How would you feel if you didn’t think that about them?”

“I would have space for so many other things in my brain! I’ve probably wasted a whole lot of my time thinking about what other people are doing wrong, haven’t I? And truly, it’s not any of my business.”

I’m sharing this here because I think it’s a good example of something we all do. Of course, it’s so much easier to see how someone else is hopelessly flawed than to look at our own habits. 

I may not care about grammar, but I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how I wish someone would say/do/be something different than they said/did/are. Things that currently drive me bonkers are other people’s driving, using food words to describe yoga poses (“Sink down into a juicy squat...”) and “the Law of Attraction.”

This week my mom and I encourage you to look closely for your own conversate. What are you wasting your time fixating on? What would you have time for if you weren’t so busy being irritated by other people’s behavior? Without being hard on yourself, consider for a moment how you would feel if you made less space for judgement. It's a pretty good motivator. 

Comment here to let me know what drives you bananas, and what fascinating thoughts you’ll have in place of useless annoyances!

Much love,

Bear

P.S. My mom approved and endorsed this post! 

Anatomy as Self-Care

When I first started practicing yoga, I was a stranger in my own skin. Never an athlete, my body was a mystery to me. Ever a bookworm, my body had been rendered irrelevant by my mind.

Yoga taught me that my body was a place to be myself, to feel at home. Yoga said my body was powerful, strong, something not to be ashamed of but to be celebrated.

Over the past ten years of yoga practice, my body has become an atlas for self-exploration, and I’ve searched for landmarks in the territory of my anatomy. I learned the basics first: femur, hamstrings, biceps, then the more complex layers: psoas, scalenes, latissimus dorsi.

This was practical for keeping up in a yoga class, and for treating my own injuries, but there is a deeper benefit. The more my anatomical knowledge has grown, the more present I have become in my body, minute to minute, on and off the yoga mat.

Anatomy enables us to see, feel, and name our body parts and all their relevant actions, and through that knowledge, we’re less often held hostage by the mind. Yoga anatomy offers a way to care for yourself, just by being more fully in your body.

Registration closes March 25th for Anatomy as Self-Care, and spots are filling quickly! Click below to for more information!  

Much love, 

Bear

Why Practice Yoga?

Last week I talked about what I think the point of yoga is, so this week in class you’ve talked about what you think the point is!

You all had so many honest and insightful thoughts that you offered up, and I’m so grateful for them. Here’s some paraphrasings of what we heard from y’all in class this week.

Yoga makes me more patient.

Yoga brings me peace.

Yoga makes my body feel healthy, and my mind too!

Yoga helps me get out of my own way.

Yoga makes me feel strong.

Yoga metabolizes suffering.

Yoga connects me to myself and to the other people in my life.

If you didn’t speak up in class this week (or you weren’t there) I’d still love to hear from you! Comment on this post to tell me: Why do you practice? What’s the point of yoga for you?

Much love, 

Bear