Restless

Tags

college, insomnia, music, restless, travel, yoga

As I stared into a black hole of insomnia at 2:00 this morning, it occurred to me that my habits of mind are both a blessing and a curse.

As a college musician I learned to refine my technique by the diligent repetition of challenging patterns. When my fingers tripped over a difficult flourish of notes I would isolate the problem spot and play it, again and again, until it sounded smooth and effortless. I would play patterns backwards and forwards. I would play them in triplets, dotted eighths, and sixteenths. I would play them slowly and then speed up the metronome one click at a time. I could sometimes spend an hour on one measure. Then I would put my flute away and emerge from the practice room, but the work continued. Over dining hall dinners and late night reading, my brain was still polishing the rough edges of the music. My fingers silently moved over absent keys. I would hear the notes in my head as I drifted off to sleep.

I came to appreciate the tremendous benefit of such mental practice – involuntary though it was, it was an important extension of the work that I did in the practice room. When I returned to my flute the next day, my improvement was measurable. Now when I talk to my students about this process I call it “percolating” – the semi-conscious process by which new information filters and seeps its way into our brains.

My ability to sustain focus on a task, to carefully and methodically work through problematic moments (and to let them simmer on the back burner,) has produced great results. It is one of the habits of mind that has contributed to my success in life. But there are times when it can be a tremendous burden. Because when I can’t identify the appropriate outlet for my mental energy, I will go around in endless circles looking for it.

As I walked out of Saturday’s TESOL class I told myself “Okay … time to relax.” I envisioned a perfect leisurely Sunday with extra sleep, extra foam on my latte, and extra time to do whatever I damn well please. All of these things happened, and yet somehow the leisure part eluded me. I was dogged by an understated but persistent sense of restlessness for the entire weekend. Something – I couldn’t tell what – was not right. And because my brain is hard-wired to polish all of the rough edges it encounters, I turned this thought over and over in my brain all weekend.

One of my favorite yoga teachers calls this state of mind “monkey brain.” The inability to quiet one’s mental chatter is detrimental to the practice of yoga, and to a peaceful life in general. My inner primate was out of control this weekend.

I tried baking and writing and walking and reading and cleaning and nothing worked. I made a to do list of all of my outstanding obligations. I studied my calendar. I checked all of my bank statements. Everything seemed to be more or less in order, but something was still not right.

Unsure of where to focus my monkey brain, I turned my attention to my upcoming summer travel. This proved to be a happy distraction for several hours. But as I lay awake with language classes, train timetables, and dress codes churning in my brain, I realized that all I had managed to do was refocus – not dispel – my restless energy.

Today I am paying the price. And I still don’t know why.

Spring Fever

Tags

Buck, clothing, dog, roommates, spring, yoga

Today is officially the first day of spring, and I have never been so mindful of its arrival.

I have no idea why I am feeling so prone to spring fever, considering that this has been the mildest winter of my entire life. There is no reason why my spirit should hunger for sunlight and green when the crocuses have already been up for weeks. But nonetheless, it hungers.

Driven by some unconscious desire, I reached for my black cotton/lyrca skirt this morning. I don’t think I’ve ever worn it to work, although it is a staple in my summer travel wardrobe. Lightweight and versatile, it pairs just as well with strappy sandals as with Birkenstocks. Its black hue shows no stains, and it comes out of the bottom of my backpack wrinkle-free to class up any outfit. I love the way it drapes over my hips and billows around my ankles. It reminds me of drinking espresso in Venice, strolling along the Vieux Port in Marseille, and shopping for chocolate in Salzburg.

Summer usually finds me in Europe, and in this skirt.

Perhaps I was swayed this morning by the sun streaming through the window, or by the abundance of Vernal Equinox references on Facebook. Whatever the motivation, it was clear that trousers and socks were simply not acceptable.

It’s amazing how lightness of fabric can translate to lightness of spirit. My whole world seemed somehow brighter this morning – the coffee stronger, the traffic lighter, the music sweeter.

Buck too has been anticipating Spring’s arrival by casting off his extra layers. At this time each year he leaves a blanket of gray, billowy hair everywhere he goes. I have to go over my bed with a lint brush – several times – before I retire each night. My daily vacuuming does little to counteract his efforts. He just keeps producing more and more fur. Recently I’ve been grooming him each morning and night, but in between brushings he still lies on his side and drags himself across the bedroom carpet, leaving streaks of black and white in his wake.

I’ve learned to accept a messier life with him, and to celebrate his hairy offerings as a harbinger of spring.

Another harbinger of spring arrived this morning in the form of an email from my frined Kelley, who left her job (and my spare bedroom) to pursue a career as a full-time yoga instructor. She’s been harnessing the power of social media to promote her classes. In honor of the equinox, she included some thoughts on yoga as a spiritual discourse, reminding her readers that spring is the perfect time to practice lightness of the spirit.

To encourage such an approach, she shared the five yamas (restraints) and niyamas (observances) of yoga. She encouraged us to take advantage of this opportunity to practice the ideals of truth, restraint, purity, discipline, and self-study.

Truth be told, it was a lot to process before finishing my morning Italian roast. But it was a welcome reminder that the seasons – and perhaps this one in particular – offer us the gift of renewal that is not to be squandered.

In Pursuit of Flexibility

Tags

balance, mindfulness, travel, yoga

I recently started taking classes at a new-to-me yoga studio. The studio is in a neighboring town, sharing space with a pottery studio in what used to be a Registry of Motor Vehicles. I find this absolutely hilarious.

I’ve been studio-hopping recently – this is my fourth new place since September. I wish I could say that I’ve been switching up my routine out of a desire to keep my practice fresh, to benefit from the perspective of multiple skilled teachers, and to connect with a broader cross section of my local yoga community.

The truth is that I’ve been studio-hopping because Groupon has been offering lots of yoga deals recently. But I am still enjoying all of the aforementioned benefits.

Switching yoga studios, I have learned, is kind of a big deal. It is so much more than driving in a new direction, or carpeted floor vs. bamboo. Every studio is guided by a different philosophy, and every teacher has his or her unique method of delivering instruction.

Last night’s class contained no new poses for me – it was a standard assortment of downward dogs, warriors, and half moons. But the sequence of poses was entirely different from the routines that have become familiar to me, and thus, I struggled continuously to find my balance. It felt like driving a familiar route in which all the  intersections had been taken apart and put back together wrong.

The instructor asked us to roll onto our right sides and balance our weight on our right hipbones. While cradling our heads in our right hands, we attempted to line our bodies up with the edges of our mats, stacking our feet and letting our left arms rest on the top of our perfectly straight bodies.

“You all look very peaceful and relaxed,” the instructor told us. (I was neither.) “But  despite its reclined appearance, this is a very dynamic pose. You may notice that you are making continuous micro-adjustments in order to stay balanced on that hip.”

Well, yes. Yes, I was. And it was a lot harder than it looked.

Lately an old Ani DiFranco song has worked its way out of my distant memory and onto my mental playlist:

Buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the world,
that’s what it takes.
All that steel and stone
are no match for the air, my friend
what doesn’t bend breaks.

I’ve recently spent a lot of time – both on and off the yoga mat – determining just how far I am willing and able to bend.

I’ve also spent a lot of time attempting to regain a sense of alignment that has somehow eluded me ever since my recent trip. At first I blamed my stiffness on the extensive walking and a heavy backpack. But after a return to my normal routine, the problem only got worse. The soreness started in my hips and spread to my elbows and shoulders. Defying all expectations, yoga classes seemed to exacerbate, not help the problem.

The slightest imbalance in skeletal alignment can cause us to overcompensate in strange ways. Tonight as I removed my shoes I noticed that my feet were oddly sore. As I flexed and arched my feet I realized that in my effort to shift my weight off of my sore hips, I had adopted an unsupported stance.

I have quite literally been digging in my heels.

It’s awfully hard to unclench muscles that have grown accustomed to working overtime. So is adapting to a new yoga routine. So is determining when to bend and what to break.

Yoga teaches us to take time in a pose – not to force it but to breathe deeply, and to let the breath carry us deeper into the stretch.

For me, it’s a work in progress.

Steady

Tags

balance, control, yoga

I was so happy to return to my yoga practice today. I’ve been on a three-week hiatus following my recent wisdom teeth extraction – many yoga poses position the head below the heart, increasing blood flow to an area that has been sensitive post-surgery, so I thought it wise to abstain.

Wow, have I missed it.

I recently wrote about how yoga has taught me greater respect for the art of practice, but its life lessons do not stop there. While increased strength and flexibility are good enough reasons to practice, it’s the mental benefits that I most miss during an extended period away from my mat.

Yoga has taught me a lot about balance. Many postures involve supporting one’s weight on one foot while positioning the upper body in an asymmetrical shape, shifting one’s center of gravity. The instructors tell us to focus on one spot in order to achieve balance. They tell us that the one spot should be a stationary object – the corner of the wall, or a votive candle on a shelf. Staring at an unmoving object brings stillness to the mind, which in turn brings stillness to the body. Placing one’s focus on another person in the class tends to be less effective, for when that person shifts, it sets off a chain reaction of instability.

Recently I’ve realized that this yogic phenomenon has broader implications for a balanced life: balance can not come from the people around us. People shift. Sometimes they disappear. Some of them betray. Some orbit in and out of our lives. I have been thrown off kilter enough times to learn that people are, by their very nature, not stationary. I’ve found that the key to feeling centered and strong is to keep my eye firmly on the things that do not waver: my principles. (Surrounding myself with people who focus on those same principles has also proven to be helpful.)

Yoga has taught me two lessons about control, which at first glance seemed contradictory, but which I now see as complimentary. The first lesson is that many things are beyond my control. I can not make my tight hips open into a full pigeon pose. I can not make the guy next to me stop grunting. I can not barricade myself from the perplexing questions and pressing issues that clamor for top billing in my brain.

But the second lesson about control is that I have full reign over my response. I can breathe into the discomfort, unclench my jaw, and will my muscles to go just one inch deeper into the pose. I can respect the grunter, because damn it, this is really freaking hard, and who am I to pretend otherwise? And when my mind begins to wander off my mat I can say to those perplexing questions and pressing issues: “I see you. I will address you. Just not now.”

I’m sure the life lesson here is pretty obvious. Yesterday I told you all about a situation that is entirely beyond my control (a post that drew even more attention than peanut butter brownies!) I resent the lack of control that I feel over a damaging situation. I can’t stop it any more than I can hold back the shifting tide. But I can face this uncontrollable situation with the knowledge that I spoke my truth. I wrote it on this blog, and lots of people read it.

I am starting to notice measurable improvement in my core strength. I can do unmodified pushups for the first time in my life. And just as my muscles have transformed in response to my practice, so too has my mind. Whether it’s a rubber mat or a mental space, I have learned that I can always return to a space of tranquility and calm.

Turmoil surrounds me, but my gaze is fixed.

Practice

Tags

gnp, mindfulness, resolution, yoga

Hello, readers. This is my twenty-eighth Creative Exfoliation.

My college band director Mr. Parks once said at a leadership training session that it takes twenty eight repetitions to turn a behavior into a habit. This statement had such a profound impact on me when I heard it. I thought of all the times that I had tried to build a habit in my young life, and all the times that those habits had failed to stick. Clearly I just hadn’t given them enough time to take root. Mr. Parks had handed me the key to living a healthy, balanced, and productive existence.

The only problem is that it never seemed to work for me. What he was telling us, of course, is that practice pays off. But I took him a little too literally and came to believe that there was something magical about that number twenty eight – that the twenty eighth time I flossed my teeth it would unlock some untapped resolve in my brain and I would become a lifelong flosser. Time and time again I tested this theory, and each time I failed to follow through with the twenty ninth repetition I blamed myself.

As a musician I am intimately familiar with the concept of practice. It’s what I do on a daily basis. In college I routinely spent up to three hours a day shut inside a small room designated specifically for this purpose. There were hallways lined with these rooms, and at all hours of the day and night one could hear the sound of long tones emanating from the corridors, along with the dogged repetitions of technical passages against the unwavering pulse of a metronome. Now I impart the value of practice to my students (and I am always careful to remind them, as Mr. Parks reminded us, that the old adage is completely false: practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.)

It was not until my late twenties that I discovered yoga. I took my first classes at the gym, and thus I approached it as a fitness activity. It was, indeed, quite physically challenging. At every class the instructor reminded us that yoga was non-competitive, and that each pose came with modifications to make it work for every unique body. But I refused to let myself try the modifications. I was determined to get it “right.”

This attitude towards practice was reflective of my experience as a practicing musician. For my entire life, I had defined practice as the elimination of flaws. And to be clear, my musical education was an overwhelmingly positive experience and full of inspiring moments. My teachers were not domineering taskmasters. And yet I practiced with the mindset that I needed to iron out all the kinks in pursuit of perfection.

Lately I’ve been doing my yoga at yoga studios – the kinds of places with bamboo floors and candles and instructors who speak in a combination of English and Sanskrit. It’s just as physically challenging as the classes at my gym, but my mental state is entirely different. The instructors at the gym talked about a non-competitive and non-judgmental practice, but the studio instructors embody it.

The yogic concept of “practice” is one that took a while for me to understand. Even the most experienced yogis call what they do “practice.” No one ever describes himself as an expert. One is never finished practicing yoga, but each session on the mat reinforce the physical and mental routines that contribute to vibrant health.

This concept of practice has not only had a positive impact on my musical study, but it has changed the way I view every choice, large or small, in my life. Each time I pick up the dental floss, choose not to purchase the tempting item, or listen to someone with empathy, I am practicing the art of being who I want to be. This notion has been incredibly freeing to me because it also changes the way I view my mistakes. Whether my error is missing the twenty-ninth floss or mistakenly saying something hurtful, I remind myself that it doesn’t make me a bad person. It was just a bad practice session. Tomorrow’s will be better.

And although I’m pretty sure Mr. Parks never did a downward dog in his life, I have a feeling he would agree.

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