Do's and Don'ts of Yoga, Part Five: Aparigraha {Non-Grasping}

This is the final installment of a five part series on the Yamas, the ethical guidelines for how to live a yogic life. (Parts one, two, three, and four are over here: Non-violence, Truthfulness, Non-stealing, and Celibacy.)

The fifth Yama is Aparigraha, which translates as non-greed, non-hoarding, or (my personal favorite) non-grasping. This is one that comes up pretty regularly for most of us. Whether or not we notice it is something else entirely.

We live in a greedy culture.

Advertising is a gazillion dollar industry, the sole purpose of which is to inspire greed, endlessly stoking the desire for more. More money, a better house, a nicer car, fancier clothes. The list goes on and on. (If those don’t ring true, how about these? A Pinterest-worthy living room, a pastel colored bike with a basket full of flowers on the front, clothes that make you feel like you live in an Anthropologie catalog, etc.) If greedlessness seems inaccessible, you’re not alone, and it’s not your fault. Capitalism runs on the belief that we never have enough. (Does that make Aparigraha an anti-capitalist sentiment???)

It works in non-materialistic ways too. You’re single and you’re constantly pining away for that special someone. You finally find them, and a few months in, you remember how much easier things were when you were single. You’re in Downward Dog and you can’t wait to be doing backbends instead. You’re in Wheel Pose and you wish the teacher would put you back in Down Dog already.

We often want what we don’t have, and this wanting cripples our ability to enjoy what we do have.

Here’s a story to illustrate the point. (Full disclosure: I heard this somewhere a loooong time ago and have no idea if it’s true. Extensive Googling only turns up references to motivational speakers using it with no evidence to back it up. Urban myth or no, the metaphor works and it’s stuck with me all this time so I’m transforming it into a fairy tale here.)

Once upon a time, zookeepers did an experiment on their monkeys. The monkeys were well fed and cared for, happy little creatures. One day, the zookeepers placed coconuts along one side of the cage. Each coconut had a small hole drilled into it and was filled with a sweet treat. The monkey would stick its paw into the coconut and grab the treat, but to its dismay, the hole in the coconut was just the size of the monkeys open paw. When it clenched its fist to grasp the treat, it could no longer remove its paw. For hours, monkeys sat around the cage with coconut fists, unable to remove their paws, and yet, unable to let go of the treat.

This is us. We're all wandering around with coconut fists. We want what we can’t have so badly that we spend days, months, years pining away for it. All the while, our bellies grumble, but our paws are stuck so we can’t eat the food we’ve already got.

Aparigraha is relinquishing the desire to have more than we need, and instead practicing appreciation for what we’ve already got.

There’s no happy ending until we open up our fists and let go.

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!

And if you want even more connection, find me on Facebook and Instagram.

You might also like:  

• Yoga and Capitalism

• How To Quiet Your Mind 

• What Happens When Your Mind Isn't Quiet

Do's and Don'ts of Yoga, Part Four: Brahmacharya

This is part four of a five part series on the Yamas, the ethical guidelines for how to live a yogic life. (Parts one, two, and three are over here: Non-violence, Truthfulness, and Non-stealing.)

The fourth Yama is Brahmacharya, traditionally translated as celibacy. I struggle with how to interpret Brahmacharya. I’m definitely not celibate and probably neither are you, but our behavior doesn’t negate the relevance of this teaching. I have trouble with the idea that I can just pick and choose the teachings I like or find to be interesting. I’ve signed on to this whole system of Yoga, and yet sometimes I’m not sure what to do with this teaching. 

One thing that I’ve found useful is to investigate the spirit of the law, as opposed to trying to follow the letter of the law to a T. We can ask,

“What is the intended effect of this teaching? What are some other ways to get to that intended effect?”

Just like in the asana practice, not every pose is for every body. For a variety of reasons, a student might be better off skipping Wheel Pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana), for example. But rather than just sitting that pose out, we can ask, “What is the intended effect of this pose? How else can I create those effects?” In Wheel Pose, we might practice Bridge Pose (Setu Bhanda Sarvangasana) instead to open the hip flexors, or practice a backbend supported on a chair to find opening through the chest and shoulders.

With Brahmacharya, one intended effect is to better enable us to focus on our spiritual pursuits. If that’s the case, we can then ask, “What is distracting me from my practice? Are there things I can put aside in an effort to have a more intentional focus on the Divine?” Another intended effect might be to allow us to practice self-control. So then we can inquire, “Where are the areas that I feel tempted to engage in activities I’ve committed to stop doing?” Quitting smoking, getting off sugar, fasting from the Internet, etc, are all opportunities to practice self-control.

In this way, we remain true to the spirit of the law even if we’re not able to or interested in following the letter of the law.

Even if we’re not giving up sex altogether, the yoga teachings still offer plenty of insight into how to govern ourselves in romantic interactions. We can look to the other Yamas for guidance.

Are you harming other people in your pursuit of sex or romance or are you practicing Ahimsa (non-violence)? Are you willing to lie or manipulate others to get what you want or do you always practice Satya (truthfulness)? Are you wishy-washy about getting consent or do you take only what’s been freely offered, aligning yourself with Asteya (non-stealing)? By making sure that we’re practicing ahimsa, satya, and asteya in all our romantic and sexual partnerships, we minimize pain and suffering for ourselves and others.

Have thoughts or questions? I'd love to hear from you!

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! And if you want even more connection, find me on Facebook and Instagram.

Do's and Don'ts of Yoga, Part Three: Asteya {Yamas and Niyamas}

There’s a running joke in my family that one of my aunts is “chronically late”, as though it were a condition she’s afflicted with. It’s a disease I share. I’m not always late, but more often than I’d like, I find myself leaving the house later than I meant to and then rushing to the next place I have to be. This is stressful for me, no doubt, but it’s also a waste of time for the person on the other end, sitting at the restaurant or outside the yoga studio, waiting for me to arrive.

The third Yama in the list is Asteya, non-stealing. (The Yamas are the ethical guidelines for living a yogic life. We covered the first two, Ahimsa {non-violence} and Satya {truth}, the past few weeks.) Asteya both refers to not stealing the possessions others but also to not stealing the intangibles, time, energy, etc, ie, not taking that which is not freely given. When I’m late for an appointment, I’m stealing the time of whoever is waiting on me.

I once had a sweetie who was even later than I was. Without fail, I’d wait half an hour or more every single time we met. Even though I was also often late, it made me so angry! I felt disrespected, like my boo didn’t think my time was valuable. I’d sit at the coffeeshop or the bar fuming about this time I was wasting. This was ultimately really good for me because it taught me what other people felt like when I stole their time, but I still struggle to consistently be punctual.

Of course life happens, and occasionally things come up (sometimes literally, like the St. Claude Bridge). But if you’re habitually, chronically late like me, we’ve got work to do. Stealing time from other people creates more fluctuations in our mind (Sutra 1.2), and prevents us from abiding in our own True Nature (Sutra 1.3).

This week I’m thinking of timeliness as next to Godliness, so to speak, and trying hard to not steal time that doesn’t belong to me. Will you join me?

Much love,

Bear

Do's and Don'ts of Yoga, Part Two: Satya {Truthfulness}

When I was a teenager, before I’d ever said to anyone that I thought I might be queer, I imagined that “coming out” would be a huge, earth-shattering, and singular event. Then I came out to my best friend at church, and I realized I ought come out to the rest of my friends too. I came out to even more people when I started dating a woman my freshman year of college. I came out to my parents the next year, after we’d been dating in secret for too long. And I came out to more of my extended family the year after that, when my face ended up on the front page of the newspaper at a rally in support of gay marriage. Oops.

It feels like I’ve been coming out ever since.

The second quality in the Yamas, Patanjali’s list of guidelines for living an ethical life, is Satya, which translates as truthfulness. It’s relevant that here Patanjali doesn’t require a non-action in the way he talks about many of the other Yamas. Here it’s a positive action. The call is not for non-lying, but for full-on truthfulness.

Before I was out as queer, I rarely lied outright about who I am, but I often lied by omission, leaving out a crucial detail in a story, neglecting to mention that the friend I was referencing was really my girlfriend. A lie of omission is still a lie. Part of living fully in the truth is not hiding relevant pieces of information about who we are.

Remember that the Yamas are the first part of the path of Yoga. Dealing with our relationships with others is where we must start to have any hope of creating a state of Yoga (a ceasing of the fluctuations of the mind.) If you’re lying about, or even just hiding, the truth about yourself, you set yourself up for strife. Drama keeps your mind full of thoughts, aka fluctuations of the mind, which in turn keeps you from being able to reside in your own True Nature, which is ultimately the point of practicing Yoga (Sutra 1.3).  

I often feel like coming out has never really stopped. When I’ve dated a man for any length of time, I have to come out again to family or to new friends who might simply assume that because I’m with a man that I must be straight. Living in Satya requires that we be “out” about who we are. When we’re “closeted”, we are always living to some degree in untruthfulness.

Maybe for you it’s not about being queer, but all of us have aspects of ourselves that feel uncomfortable to reveal. There are things we’d rather that the whole world not know, that we’d rather no one knew. Where are you hiding? What do you need to come out about? I’d love to hear from you!

Much love, 

Bear

---

If you want to think more about Satya, earlier this year I wrote extensively about quitting lying, even in the smallest form, for the forty days of Lent. Read all the reasons I tell lies, and probably why you do too.

• Why I Tell Lies, Part One
• Why I Tell Lies, Part Two
• Why I Tell Lies, Part Three
• Why I Tell Lies, Part Four

And if you want to hear from me weekly, sign up in the box below! You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Soundcloud.

Dos and Don'ts of Yoga, Part One {Yamas and Niyamas: Ahimsa}

The Yamas and Niyamas are often overlooked, but are arguably one of the most useful parts of the practice of yoga. Though in 2016 in the United States, we tend to focus on the asana (posture) practice, Patanjali (in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of the most referenced books about the classical practice of yoga) lays out seven other limbs to the system of yoga. The first one is Yama.

Yama translates literally as restraint. (Think pranayama, restraining of the breath or controlling of the life force.) We often think of the Yamas and Niyamas as the dos and don’ts of yoga, or the ethical guidelines for living a yogic life. This is a pretty straightforward shorthand, but if we reference back to the first section of the Sutras, we’re reminded WHY we practice yoga: in order to see ourselves clearly, in order to reconnect with the truth of who we really are. (Sutra 1:3 Tada Drastuh Svarupe Avasthanam--Then the Self abides in its own true nature.)

The yoga practice, then, is one of clearing away all that is not that essence, that inner light, and the Sutras explain how to do so. The second sutra explains that yoga is a stilling of the fluctuations of the mind (Sutra 1:2 Yogash Citta Vritti Nirodhah--Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind-stuff). All the practices of yoga, not just the asanas, are leading us towards a mind that is still and quiet.

The fact that Yama is the first limb of the eight-limb system of yoga is telling. Through this Patanjali says, don’t start with your body, or your breath, or any of the higher realms. If you want your mind to be clear, start with your relationships. Begin with how you interact with others.

The first yama is Ahimsa, non-harming. Recollect an incident in which you harmed someone else. Remember back to that time. Consider the ripple effect that harm might have had on your mind, your heart, your ability to see yourself clearly. Harming another living creature creates a disturbance in the mind that is hard to let go of. Similarly, if you’ve been harmed by another, this effect may be amplified even more. Consider also the effects of negative self-talk and other self-harming behavior.

We practice ahimsa, non-harming, not only because it meets the moral guidelines of the Sutras and of our internal compass. We also practice ahimsa because harming clouds the mind, and a cloudy mind is moving away from a state of yoga. Non-harming brings us closer to a clear and quiet mind, which allows us to see ourselves clearly, to connect to the divine that lives in each of us.

Much love, 

Bear

P.S. 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! And if you want even more connection, find me on Facebook and Instagram.

P.P.S. Want more on the Yoga Sutras? 

• How To Quiet Your Mind 
• What Happens When Your Mind Isn't Quiet 
• On Practice...
• And Detachment

The R.A.I.N. of Self-Compassion

Dealing with someone else’s big feelings is challenging for any of us. (See last week's post for a reminder.) But dealing with our own big feelings can feel downright impossible. Most of us have a variety of coping mechanisms we use to distract ourselves from emotions we find uncomfortable. On the healthy end of the spectrum, we might go for a walk, or call a friend, or eat a nourishing snack. On the other end, we pour a drink, or smoke a bowl, or binge Netflix. (I buy shoes on the Internet. It’s my only true vice.)

If you don’t want to opt out, is there a mechanism for being present with your own unpleasant emotions? How, actually, do you FEEL YOUR FEELINGS?  What can you do when you’re overwhelmed and there’s no way out? Here’s a story to illustrate. Last year during the holidays I brought my partner Nick home with me to meet my father. I’ve had many serious relationships in the past decade, and I’ve brought all of my partners home to meet my mom’s side of the family, but thus far, none had met my dad.

My relationship with my father is complicated at best. He and my mom split up when I was 4, and he was only present intermittently after that. Nowadays I visit him for a few hours on Christmas Day every year, and that is generally the extent of our interaction. Having Nick there was validating in that it affirmed for me how dysfunctional my interactions with my dad really are, and you might think that validation would feel good, but in fact, when we left my dad’s house on Christmas night last year, I felt horrible.

Nothing particularly bad had transpired, but still I cried in the Exxon parking lot as we filled the gas tanks, preparing to drive three hours back to New Orleans. In trying to manage seeing all of our families, we had arrived in two cars, so I was driving back alone. I was still crying as we merged onto the interstate in our separate vehicles, and it was then I realized that the car I was driving didn’t even have a working stereo. There were literally no distractions. Oh shit, I thought.

There’s a practice called RAIN that I used that night that I learned from the teachings of Tara Brach. It’s sometimes called the RAIN of Self-Compassion, and it’s a technique for being present with your big feelings. RAIN is an acronym which stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Non-Attachment.

So there I am, just me and my feelings, careening down the dark highway at 75 miles an hour. First I RECOGNIZE what is happening. I’m feeling shame. There’s some anger in there, and sadness too. The pain of not having a relationship with someone I'm supposed to have a relationship with. But mostly shame at having someone witness my family’s particular brand of crazy.

Then ALLOW those feelings to be. Don’t fight with them. Don’t try to make them go away. Don’t distract yourself from them. Just let them happen. I cried and shouted for about 50 miles and tried not to drive off the road.

INVESTIGATE what’s really going on. Anchor your emotions in physical sensation. What does shame feel like? Where does anger live? What are the sensations associated with sadness? I found shame sitting like a ton of bricks in my stomach, sadness crashing like waves in my chest, anger clenching hot in my fists. Don’t run away from what you’re feeling. Go towards it. Explore.

The final step is to meet this experience with NON-ATTACHMENT. Can you have big emotions and know that they will pass? I felt shame, sadness, and anger, but I am not those feelings. After an hour or so on the road, the waves got smaller and eventually subsided. I knew they might return, but I also knew they didn’t define who I am. I felt them, let them move through me, and then let them go.

Our lived experiences are vast and not limited to the emotions we find pleasant and desirable. RAIN can be so useful in allowing us to experience the fullness of life. Learning to be present with the discomfort of being human gives us access to a richer, deeper emotional life. To recap: 

R   Recognize what is happening

A   Allow life to be just as it is

I   Investigate inner experience

N   Non-Identification

Want to explore RAIN some more? Head over to Tara Brach's website for a podcast and meditation that explores the topic. {https://www.tarabrach.com/the-rain-of-self-compassion/}

Much love, 

Bear

P.S. Like what you're reading? Get new blog posts in your inbox every week! Just click the button.

P.P.S. Have you missed some recent posts? Read about yoga and: 

• EMPATHY
• BEING AN ADULT
• GETTING SHIT DONE
• SOCIAL JUSTICE
• MONEY

Sympathy, Empathy, and How To Feel Your Feelings

Today I want to tell a story about a child who taught me something really valuable about the difference between sympathy and empathy. She's six years old. Let’s call her Maya (name and identifying details changed for privacy). She’s the youngest daughter of a woman I met this year at the Alternate ROOTS annual meeting.

{Alternate ROOTS is a 40-year-old organization of artists and activists from the South who are working to undo all forms of oppression. It is the most grounded and inspiring community I am ever part of. ROOTS is truly diverse in all ways, and it’s far from perfect, but we aspire over and over again to get our hands dirty and do the work of living in community with each other.}

On the first night I was standing in the lobby of the main building talking to a dear friend who I hadn’t seen since last year’s ROOTS meeting when Maya, a child I’d never met before, walked up to me and took my hands. I paused my conversation and knelt down to talk to her.

“Hi, I’m Bear. What’s your name?” and she introduced herself to me. We hugged and then she kissed my cheek. She met my friend too, then Maya turned to leave. We resumed our adult conversation, but quickly she came back to us. Unprompted, she stroked the end of my nose and said, “I miss you!” We were fast friends.

Over the week I interacted with her in the dining hall and in between activities in the Youth Village. She was clearly having a great week, playing with the dozen other kids who were there. On the final night Maya arrived at the closing dance party for the meeting. It was early and there were just a dozen or so of us on the dance floor. Maya was clearly upset. Eventually she made her way around the dance floor to me. She raised her arms to me in the universal child gesture of “Pick me up!” so I did.

I said, “Are you feeling sad? What’s wrong?” and she cried, “I. Don’t. Want. It to be the. L-a-a-a-aast niiiiiiiiight!!!!!” and I said, “It’s okay Maya, you’ll see them again next year! You’ll come back, and you’ll see them again.” And she said, “But Alabama is a lo-o-o-o-ong way away!!!!!” And I laughed a little bit at her drama and I said, “It’s not so far, Maya. You’ll come back and see all your friends. It’s okay!” And she just cried harder. “Come on, don’t you want to dance with me? Dance! I bet you’ll feel better if you dance!” I cajoled. She would not be consoled.  

I was feeling sympathetic, but then I had a moment of true empathy. I looked at her and I felt her pain. Even though I don’t usually have a total meltdown as I’m leaving ROOTS, I too know the pain of loving and losing that she was feeling. I have cried on the last day before, and I have certainly felt the pain of losing someone I love more permanently, through a move, a breakup or a death. I understood that this child with the open and loving heart, the one who had come up to me and kissed my cheek without knowing me, who told me she missed me moments after meeting me, was hurting.

I felt empathy and I felt compassion. Sympathy, as described by researcher-storyteller Brene Brown, is “Ooh! It’s bad…huh? You want a sandwich?” {Have you seen that cute video of her describing the difference between sympathy and empathy? It's pretty great and it has a bear in it!} Compassion, on the other hand, means ‘to suffer with.’ Having empathy doesn’t have anything to do with trying to fix anyone else’s problems, or showing them how it’s not so bad, or distracting them, or even to trying to make them feel better. Empathy simply asks us to be with the pain of our fellow human. So I tried a different approach. I said,

“Maya, are you sad that you have to leave your friends?” and she said,

“Yeeeeeeaaaasssssss.”

“Your heart hurts because you’re going to miss them, doesn’t it?” She nodded. I continued, “Yeah, it’s really hard to leave the people that we love and care about. It’s hard to be apart from them when we love them so much.” And she said,

“I feeeeeeel saa-a-a-a-a-a-d.”

“It’s okay to feel sad,” I said. Do you want me to keep holding you while you feel sad?” She nodded. So I did, dancing with her in my arms.

How often do we try to fix the problems of the people around us rather than simply be with them? We try to get the other person to see that it’s not so bad, to look at the bright side. We think we are being helpful. It is so hard to simply be with another person in their pain because it reminds us of our own pain, our own vulnerability, our own capacity for hurt and trauma. It makes us feel how close our own discomfort always is.

How often do we do that to ourselves as well?  Instead of sitting with the pain, instead of being present to our own uncomfortable sensations, we want out as quickly as possible. (It’s worth noting here that if you are dealing with active trauma or are in crisis, distraction can be a very important and useful tool, and you shouldn’t push yourself to be present with your pain when it feels like too much. Be kind and patient with yourself and consider seeking the help of a therapist or other qualified professional.)

I have spent so much time trying to distract myself from my own suffering. When I feel sad or hurt or angry or afraid, I pour myself a drink or I shop for shoes on the internet or I eat a lot of cookies. Maybe for you it’s smoking cigarettes or watching Netflix. Pay attention this week as you go about your life. Notice when you are distracting yourself from your suffering. See if you can pause and meet yourself with empathy instead. Watch what happens when you do.

After a few minutes Maya popped her head up and said, “I’m ready to get down now.” So I put her down and she ran off to find her sister and some of the other kids. The sadness had moved through her and so she moved on. I watched her from across the room, both of us dancing.

Much love, 

Bear

P.S. IF YOU LIKE WHAT I WRITE, I'D LOVE TO KEEP IN TOUCH. SIGN UP FOR WEEKLY BLOG POSTS DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX BY CLICKING HERE OR FILLING IN THE FORM AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE.

IF YOU WANT EVEN MORE CONNECTION, FIND ME ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.

You might also like: 

• A Blessing for Grace in Times of Chaos
• How Capitalism Ruins Everything (Even Yoga)

How To Keep Up Your Yoga Practice (Or Any Practice At All)

How do you create a habit? How do you keep up a practice? Whether it’s yoga or meditation or playing an instrument, sticking with a practice is often impossibly difficult. When faced with your own wishy-washy approach, coupled with the nasty lies your inner judge likes to spout off, you might just throw in the towel before you’ve even gotten started. In this post I address some of the mental patterns that make creating a new habit so hard, and give you one fun yet concrete tool to use to dismantle that crippling mindset and get out of your own way.

Previously I wrote about why it’s so hard for so many of us to cross things off our to do list. The TL;DR version is that we often write things down on our lists that are projects (like redesigning a website) not tasks (like scheduling an appointment for new headshots for the aforementioned website). Even when you’ve made a bunch of progress (scheduled the appointment), you haven’t actually completed the whole project (redesigned the website) and thus, you can’t cross it off the list. This sets you up to feel inadequate, unproductive, and like you can never finish what you start. (Sound familiar? Read the whole thing over here.)

How is a practice different from a project different from a task? A project is big, complex, and impossible to finish in one sitting. A task is its polar opposite: small, discrete, and finished in one go. A practice, on the other hand, is a little of both. Playing an instrument, for instance. It's something that happens in one sitting, but it's never quite done. And if you're used to hearing a whole lot of talk from your own inner critic about how terrible and lazy you are, trying to build a meaningful, sustained practice over time might feel like an uphill battle. In short, even though you work hard, you might still end up feeling shitty about yourself.

What I'm not saying here is that you're only as good as the work you produce. While I’m all for doing the deep digging work of figuring out how to extract myself from that kind of capitalist thinking, sometimes I just want to get things done. When you practice anything, you start to feel pride and a sense of accomplishment. You feel like less of a useless sloth and more like a functional human (or maybe that's just me?) More importantly, you have momentum to keep going on whatever you're working on or practicing. Like the laws of physics, you move and thus you are more easily able to keep moving. As poet Kay Ryan says "Action creates a taste for itself."

In 2008 I had just graduated from college (six and half years and one hurricane later), and for the next couple of years, I struggled tO make art. I had just come from the cozy nest of art school where there were weekly assignments and critiques, teachers who were invested in my work, and a community of fellow students who were also making art. Suddenly I was without structure, without deadlines, and frankly, without motivation. I fell into a slump.

This was my cycle: I wasn’t making art, so I felt bad about myself. I felt bad about myself, so I didn’t feel inspired to make art. I didn’t make art, so I felt bad. And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. "Who do you think you are?," my inner critic taunted, "Why do you even call yourself an artist anyway? You never make any art." The voices in my head relentlessly told me I was a failure, a fraud, and a fuck-up, and though I felt sad and beaten down, some part of me didn't totally believe my self-defeating story. I needed some factual information to fight back with. This is where the Gold Star Chart came in.

Remember the Gold Star Chart? Like when you were a little kid? You, excellent six year old that you were, completed some small task and got a gold star.  Did you share your toys? Gold star! You brushed your teeth? Gold star! Learned your vocabulary words? Good job! Gold star.

I thought if I started tracking how I was spending my time, it might make me feel better about myself, (plus I happen to love tracking information and charts and graphs--ask my former roommates about my epic grocery money pie charts!) So I made my own grown-up Gold Star Chart. I even bought those old school foil star stickers at Walgreen’s. The categories needed an update, though; Instead of cleaning my room or using the potty, I started tracking how often I engaged in creative pursuits and dealt with things that we might assign to the realm of “adulting.” My first Gold Star Chart had five categories across the top: Art, Yoga, Gardening, Friends, and Money.

When I went to a yoga class or rolled out my mat for 10 Sun Salutations at home, I got a yoga star. I pulled weeds for an hour on my way home from work: gardening star. I cooked dinner with my bestie: friend star. I worked a double waiting tables and made bank: money star. And yes, when I got out my camera or sat at my sewing machine or laid on the floor to with charcoal and paper, I got an art star.

As the weeks went on, I realized I had a powerful tool in my hands. When my inner judge started to talk its predictable shit, I looked at the chart. All those gold stars so clearly contradicted the narrative the inner judge wanted me to believe. How could I be an impostor, not a real artist, not a real yogi, when I had been making art and practicing yoga almost every day for weeks? How could the inner judge argue with the facts?

Slowly I started to come out of the funk I’d been in and find ways to keep up with all of the things I wanted to practice. The things that weren’t projects with an end date, but things that I wanted to keep up with in an ongoing, infinite way. I was doing it, and I had the stars to prove it. And I felt SO MUCH BETTER inside.

I want this for you too, because I know that you are way more awesome than the little twerp that lives inside your brain would have you believe. Here’s your homework (should you choose to accept it.)

1. Dream about what practices would go at the top of your gold star chart. Narrow your list to 4-6 categories of daily/weekly activities that you want to keep track of. Possible things to track are morning rituals, exercise, being creative/writing, friends/social time, cooking, etc. no more than six.

2. Make a gold star chart by writing them vertically at the top of a page. Then write the dates down the left side in a column. Draw a grid to track each activity for each day. Make it as cute or big or small or glittery as you want. Get stickers. {Some of my coaching clients like to make their chart inside their journal or calendar where it’s always with them, while others prefer to have a visual reminder on the wall to help keep them encouraged.}

3. And then, start tracking! Be easy on yourself here about what "counts." This is not the time to create more exacting standards for yourself. Five minutes of meditation is definitely worth a star. Ten sun salutations? Gold star! (Of course, if you happen to do 90 minutes of sweaty flow yoga, yay! But don't make it a requirement.) We're going for small actions together over time. Remember the verse from the Bhagavad Gita that says, "On the path of yoga there is no failure and nothing goes to waste. Even the smallest effort towards spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest sorrow."

Let me know how this is works for you! And please be in touch if you have questions or need other support. Leave me a comment or send me an email! And if you like what I write, sign up for weekly updates below.

Much love,

Bear

P.S. Still want more? Follow me on Facebook here and on Instagram here.

Why Your To-Do List Doesn't Get Done

Hello dear ones,

Is your to-do list dysfunctional? In my work as a life coach, I see some of the same issues over and over again. The people I work with have lots of projects going at once and nearly every one of them struggles to make progress on their to-do lists. These are hard working people, mind you. Sure, they procrastinate, but no more than the rest of us, and yet no matter how many hours they put in, the list still looms. What gives?

The most common gaffe I see people make is that they don’t differentiate between tasks and projects, so they add items to their to-do list that seemingly never get done, despite the fact that they are working hard. Let me give a definition here: A task is a discrete action, something that can be accomplished in one sitting. A project is multifaceted and by definition requires coordination of multiple parts. For example, “Write text for new About page” is a task. “Website Redesign” is a project.

Imagine this: it’s the end of your workday, and you’ve been at your desk (or your kitchen table) for hours diligently working. You only took the allotted number of Facebook breaks, and you even remembered to stretch your shoulders a couple of times. (Garudasana/Eagle arms are my favorite for releasing computer neck.) But when you look at the to-do list you started your day with, you’ve only completed a couple of things on it, even though you’ve been working for a looooooong time.

Here’s the problem: If you write a project on your to-do List, even if you complete multiple tasks related to it, you don’t get to cross it off your list until the whole project is done. And if your projects are complex or dependent on other people, you may not finish it for weeks or months.  You know the feelings that follow: frustration, irritation, and that anxiety of feeling like you haven’t done enough. You might even keep working later and longer hours because you haven’t done everything you know you needed to do.

How do you shift this approach? Be very judicious when adding things to your to-do list. When you’re tempted to write “website redesign” on your list, take a minute and break it down into smaller, more doable chunks. List out all the steps it will take you to get from here to there. Put them in order and work on one at a time.

The satisfaction of crossing tasks off your list is huge! It keeps you from falling into inertia, and that momentum may even give you concrete evidence to use when the voice of your inner judge starts yapping. “You never accomplish anything,” it says. “It’s impossible for you to finish what you start. You have no follow through.” (Or at least, this is what my inner judge likes to caw about.) But when you only put tasks on the list, you have concrete factual information to clap back with. When you can honestly cross things off your list, you feel better about your work and you might end up feeling better about yourself.

Bonus: You might also glean some useful information about how long certain projects actually take. When I was working on the lead up to a big crowdfunding campaign, I was amazed at how many hours every task would take me. My expectations of what I could accomplish in a day were vastly out of touch with what was actually possible. We ended up adjusting our timeline accordingly, and everyone was much happier.

So tell me, will this be useful for you? Can you implement this shift in thinking? What else keeps you from finishing what you start? Are there other obstacles to reaching your goals? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me an email.

Much love,

Bear

P.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! Or connect with me on FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.

You might also like to read about yoga and...EMPATHY,  BEING AN ADULT and SOCIAL JUSTICE. 

Three Things Yoga and Activism Have in Common

Hello dear ones,

It has been a very heavy few weeks. I had written a list here of the places where there’s been recent violence when I started this essay a week and a half ago, but the list just keeps growing. Can you hear the world groaning under the weight of all the turmoil?

Have you, like me, felt overwhelmed in the past weeks, pinned down by our seeming impotence against the systems and forces that are literally killing human beings among us simply for the color of their skin? Did you want to pull up the covers and hide? I know I did. Did you feel scared to push back for fear of saying or doing the wrong thing? Me too.

Simultaneously I have been heartened by the responses of people around me. Led by the efforts of black and brown people, white friends and family are coming to consciousness about the grave consequences of being black in America, and it seems to me that we are speaking out and showing up for racial justice as never before.

I want to mention that amidst all the good work I’ve been witnessing, I’ve also been disturbed by a sentiment that I’ve been hearing from some in the yoga world, namely that we are “all one”, a unified human race, and that the idea of "other" is an illusion. While I agree with this on a fundamental level, avoiding racial injustices in the name of “spirituality” invisibilizes the very very different experiences we have based on our skin color. I long for a world in which we are not separated by race, gender, class, sexuality, or any other social marker, but we have work to do before we will actually live in that world, and pretending that we don’t is a perilous proposition.

The question I keep hearing from my white friends is “What can I do?”. I know this question comes from a place of love and frustration and of wanting to help, but often this question is tangled in fear, too, of not wanting to mess up or say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. I should note here that what follows is a call to my fellow white people who see the horror of the world and know we have to do something about it. 

It’s true that we (white people) definitely can’t assume we know what’s best for black people, and we always need to move with intention and accountability. But now is not the time for hesitation, platitudes and hand-wringing. Now is a time to do whatever is in your power to change the situation. Here are three mental shifts and skills derived from the yoga practice to help you come out from under the duvet and hit the streets (literally or not.)

..........................................................................................

1. Listen deeply.

One major skill I’ve gained from practicing yoga is mindfulness: the ability to stay present and listen deeply, to breathe one breath and then another without shying away from your feelings, no matter how unpleasant. Use this skill now. Listen deeply to the many people of color have been writing and talking for years, decades and centuries about the role that white people can play in moving towards justice.

Read their books and blogs. Listen to their podcasts. Educate yourself. Do your own work. Continue to listen even and especially when you feel uncomfortable. Ask white friends who have been doing this work for help when you need it. Listen deeply to the voices of people of color who have already spoken out about how we can all work to undo racism.

For a long time I felt like I needed people of color to instruct me in what to do about systemic racism. Let’s all do our best not to take up the time or energy of our black friends and loved ones with questions or pleas for instruction, not because we shouldn’t listen to them (because we should!), but because many black and brown people have already stated what white people can do to help.

postcard from Gutwrench Press

2. You have all the tools you need.

Yoga has taught me that we have everything we need inside us. You don’t have to add anything to who you fundamentally are in order to do the work of furthering justice (or being human, for that matter). I want to repeat that: YOU HAVE ALL THE TOOLS YOU NEED. I don’t mean that you do not have learning or growing to do, because we all do. I mean that you already have the necessary skills to begin to undo racism and dismantle systemic white supremacy.  We can’t do everything but we must do something.

So ask yourself, what do I already know how to do that might be of use to the movement? Can you think of organizations that you might be able to offer your skills to? The movement needs protestors, but it also needs lawyers and nurses and massage therapists (it realllly needs some massage therapists.) Can you cook food for protesters? Maybe you’re a whiz at social media. Use the skills you already have to get involved.

Maybe you don’t have a specialized skill to offer but you have a car that you could use to give people rides to meetings. Maybe you can volunteer a few hours a month to make phone calls or do childcare. Maybe you can give your money monthly to organizations doing the work with the communities most affected.

Perhaps you have a platform to talk about racial justice with a wider audience (*ahem* like how I’m using this newsletter to talk to all 300 of you). It could be your email list, your co-workers, your boo or your family. Anytime you have the opportunity, use the tools you’ve already got: your voice, your brain, and your heart.

3. It’s a lifelong practice.

There is a frenzy of activity happening in this moment around racial justice and it’s easy to get swept up in the social media wave, or the adrenaline of protesting. But it’s equally important to think about what we can do on a regular basis. It has taken us centuries to build and bolster the system of white supremacy. It won’t be dismantled overnight.

Similarly, if we practice yoga only intermittently, change comes slowly. When we commit to practicing regularly, there begins to be an urgency built into our practice that propels us along. Use this principle in your approach to activism. Consider what you can do regularly and what you can sustain long-term. Think about how you can show up for justice even when there’s no march or rally.  What can you commit to doing in the long-term?

In addition, this approach relieves some of the pressure you might feel to need to do your activism perfectly. In the asana practice we may fall many times when learning a particular pose, but we keep practicing! If you think of each action you take towards justice as simply one point on a timeline of many actions you have taken and will take, then you’ll be better able to take in stride any stumbles or missteps.

Ultimately we’ll be more empowered to take useful, measured risks. Ask yourself: What can I do that is risky? What can I do that makes me uncomfortable? It might be showing up to a march or a rally. It might be initiating a difficult conversation with your parents. It might be simply sitting with your own discomfort around these issues.

Black people and people of color have been doing this work for centuries, and there have been white people there all along, though it’s often been concealed. (<--- Ask yourself why this might be.) We have access to power and privilege and influence that quite often black people simply don’t have, so while it’s dangerous and harmful to make ourselves the center of the story, we must become a part of the narrative.

..........................................................................................

So listen well, apply what you’ve already got, and commit to the work of justice for the long-term. Our voices, skills, and resources are needed in this moment, and it’s time for us to rise to the occasion. Every small action counts. We cannot lose.

Want to talk more about any of this? Got feedback about something I’ve written? Need more resources? Don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d love to hear from you!

Much love,

Bear