The phenomenon of “praying on Facebook”: when something terrible happens (like the recent horrific bombing of the Boston marathon or the tornado in Oklahoma), and the Facebook feed gets flooded with people posting things like “We’re praying for you, <insert catastrophe shorthand>” and “I’m going to get on my yoga mat and pray.”

Maybe it’s because as a card-carrying Masshole*, I’m not really into the touchy feely woo woo, but this rubs me ever-so-slightly the wrong way. I’m fairly confident the sentiment comes from a truly good place, and I understand how it feels. In the case of the Boston Marathon bombings, it was hard to be 3,000 miles away from a city super close to my heart, worried about all my friends and wishing there was something I could do. It’s a helpless feeling. Our hearts truly do “go out” to the people of Boston and Oklahoma (and Connecticut, and Haiti, and New Orleans, etc.)—maybe not literally, but in spirit. We want to be there to offer support, comfort, solidarity, what have you.

Instead, we offer solidarity through social media.

One of the best things about social media is its ability to connect us and make us feel closer to old friends and family and people who aren’t where we are. I don’t begrudge the idea of social media support. I am an avid champion of social media and our ability to communicate with people quickly and express ourselves easily. Social media can also be a powerful forum for activism. In the case of the Boston bombings, it helped spread bystander photographs and videos quickly, which may or may not have helped to catch the bombers. (It also ruined the reputation of an already-dead Brown student totally unrelated to the bombings, but that’s another story which The Atlantic told well.)

Where I get tripped up is with the suggestion that praying, or worse, “sending good energy” is actually doing something for victims of tragedies. When I read these posts, it seems like the person on the other end has the false sense of having affected change or contributed in an essential way to help out. I would wager a guess that the person this post helps the most is the person who made the comment.

After the bombing in Boston, I was having a conversation with my mom about the violence in the world today.

She made a comment about how things started getting bloody in the ’60s and just keep getting worse, with no end in sight. My mom came of age as an idealistic young hippie during the Woodstock era. She has remained an idealistic young hippie through the Reagan era and the Bush eras and all the way up until now. My Facebook friends who talk about “praying for Boston” and “sending love and support” (presumably over the internet, although it’s possible they mean telekinetically) remind me of my mom’s generation of peace lovin’ longhairs: the intention is there, but not much meaningful action. Except, one could argue that my mom’s generation actually did try to get out there and make a difference. They didn’t have Facebook, so to make a statement, they actually had to march on things and make signs.

At any rate, while love-ins and peace marches make a good statement, I’m not sure if they’ve ever made much of a difference. By now I think we’ve learned that simply voicing our opinion doesn’t necessarily effort change—and certainly not when we’re voicing it over social media, where most of our friends already agree with us. It’s an insular world, Facebook is.

But here is who is not listening to your effortless Facebook post: the guy staying up all night learning how to make a crude homemade bomb in his basement so he can go commit a terrorist act that kills and injures innocent people. That guy is not paying any attention whatsoever to the Facebook messages pleading for peace on earth, because that guy is busy. He is motivated. He is ambitious. He is coming up with a plan and setting it in action. He’s getting shit done. And that guy is winning.

Those of us who rally on the side of less violence and more peace’n’love are in a bit of a quandary, because really, how do you take MORE action on LESS violence?

Sure, you can lobby for gun control laws (and for those who have, I commend you, even if Congress sucks right now). But without guns, terrorists will simply find another way. Is naively trying to spread goodwill on social media our only option? What can we do to make a difference?

Well, we can start by being more prepared. On the New Yorker website two days after the Boston bombing,  Atul Gawande wrote an essay explaining why Boston’s hospitals prepared to intake the victims and sprang into pragmatic action so quickly:

Talking to people about that day, I was struck by how ready and almost rehearsed they were for this event. A decade earlier, nothing approaching their level of collaboration and efficiency would have occurred. We have, as one colleague put it to me, replaced our pre-9/11 naïveté with post-9/11 sobriety. Where before we’d have been struck dumb with shock about such events, now we are almost calculating about them.

My friend Jesse Seaver wrote a piece for his column on Huffington Posts’s Impact vertical about the real steps we can all take to help in a catastrophe, even from across the country or around the world. We can make sure we are signed up to be organ donors. We can give blood. We can take a CPR course. We can volunteer for a cause that speaks to us. We can give our time. We can give our money. (Seriously. Give money. To the Red Cross, to the Salvation Army, to someone you know in Boston or Oklahoma who is struggling. Money helps.)

These tactical bandaids don’t really get to the root of the problem, but I would argue that they are a more proactive way to contribute to our world than simply posting benevolent well-wishes on Facebook. Every time something like this happens, we all freak out on Facebook for five minutes, and then we don’t hear about it again. A few days after every major disaster happens elsewhere in the world, my Facebook feed always goes right back to normal: people posting pics of their food, pimping their next yoga class, checking in at the ballet. In one way, this speaks to our resilience. In another, it feels trite.

I’m not claiming to have any solutions—God, I wish I did—but wonder what it would be like if we all stopped praying on Facebook and instead went out and took an EMT class or gave a pint of blood. While you’re at it, thank a cop or a fireman today.  Cuz those guys are also getting real things done on a daily basis. 

 About Joslyn Hamilton

When my wife was teaching me to sail, she would say things like, “The boat’s thinking about jibing now.” Which is nonsense, of course; boats don’t think. But it was a useful and even poetic distillation of what was happening, and of what I needed to do about it—which was, of course, how I took the statement. (Not that I didn’t end up capsizing us anyway.) If I had taken it literally, it would, besides being of no use, have remained the nonsense that it appeared prima facie. And there’s a word for that: “fundamentalism.”

You hear a lot of this sort of thing among New Agey-type folks.  Someone once advised me to “let the negative energy flow out through the soles of your feet into the ground.” Which is, once again, patent nonsense; energy is neither “positive” nor “negative,” and anyone who tells you otherwise is betraying an appalling ignorance of physics. But like my wife’s statements, this one is a useful description of a type of experience, as well as a guideline for how to have the experience. Unfortunately, an awful lot of people, it seems, take this sort of statement literally—which makes no more sense than Young Earth creationism, if you ask me. Happily, no one is pushing to have this sort of thing taught in our public schools (yet).

My own Christian tradition conveys its teachings primarily through narrative, rather than aphorisms and precepts.

Jesus, after all, only gave only one recorded sermon—but He told a lot of stories. And stories of and about Jesus have inspired some incredibly heroic people: Mother Constance and the Martyrs of Memphis, Charles Lwanda and the Martyrs of Uganda, Francis of Assisi, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximilian Kolbe, Cesar Chavez  and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few.

But the story-based approach is also a liability for the Gospel faith, because it lends itself so readily to fundamentalism. When people tell their children that the fossil record (which, interestingly enough, corroborates the creation story of the first chapter of Genesis on many points) was put there by God to test our faith, they may preserve their literal interpretation of a metaphorical-poetic story, but they don’t do anything for our scientific competitiveness. And they end up wasting colossal financial, political and emotional resources trying to force their worldview on our public institutions.

For me, one of the most damaging effects of this kind of fundamentalism is that it sets up a straw man for the most militant and—dare I say it?—fundamentalist brand of atheists to attack.  By engaging exclusively with the most dunderheaded versions of the Divine, as set forth by our most unevolved religious thinkers, they render it all but impossible for a non-dualist like me to make them understand how very much we have in common, and how very little we differ.  All they can see is their “Flying Spaghetti Monster,” and I am deprived of fellowship with some otherwise formidable minds.

What about your tradition?  What fundamentalisms do you run up against in your practice of Yoga, Buddhism, Sikhism, Pastafarianism, atheism or what-have-you?

About Scott Robinson

Scott Robinson heard Krishna Das say, “I don’t think my high school guidance counsellor had ‘kirtan walla’ on his list of professions,” and every day he feels better for having heard that. In his mid-forties, Scott gave up college music teaching and embarked on full-time a kirtan/spiritual direction/dad track in 2009. He is currently finishing up study in spiritual direction at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, and has begun study at the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies in New York. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, two brilliant daughters and two incessantly shedding dogs. You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Scott’s work and more at www.opentothedivine.com .

Interviewed by Joslyn Hamilton

Have you read Hell-Bent yet? Do. Benjamin Lorr’s provocative but thoughtful book about both the seedy underbelly and the silver linings of the Bikram yoga world transfixed me from start to finish—twice. He blessed me with this interview, which I am so excited to share with you here on Recovering Yogi now.

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As someone who spent years immersed in the same sort of intense behind-the-scenes yoga world you became privy to while writing this book, I’m curious how you had the guts to present such a straightforward account of your time in the Bikram underworld without worrying about getting whacked by the yoga mafia. I get the feeling you don’t worry all that much about what people think of you. Is that true, or do you have a coping mechanism you’d like to divulge? 

Haha. On the contrary! I am a hopeless suck-up. And spent a huge amount of time, when I should have been writing, rubbing my knuckles raw and worrying about how all the very nice people—sincere beyond belief, and yet financially and emotionally enmeshed in the net that is Bikram Choudhury—would react to the book. An outsized number of reviews focus on how “compassionate” the book is—and I’ll take that feather in the cap—but I think a real part of that compassion was just not wanting to get it wrong, not wanting to sell anyone’s experience short, honoring all these lives I was interacting with… in short, caring a lot more about what people would think than it is ever cool to admit.

The one aside I’ll make to this is that writing did require having a firm moral compass. I was approached by an always-growing number of teachers and students who urged me to “focus on the positives” and/or to “write about the yoga and ignore the man.” Justifications for intolerable behavior were passed around with the cheery conviction of political slogans (my personal vote for most loathsome being “think about all the good he has done”). There is a lot of pressure to conform. There is no strategy here, except maybe smiling and nodding at these people, and then mentally throwing up a big middle finger in their face, feeling secure that 99% of morally sentient human beings will have your back when the facts come out.

I taught high school dropouts in Bushwick Brooklyn for six years before writing Hell-Bent. There are a lot of reasons why an inner-city student drops out, but abusive situations are shockingly high on the list. And so I went into this book having seen firsthand the interpersonal destruction sexual manipulation can cause. That added a lot of moral clarity. At the end of the day, I couldn’t have looked myself in the mirror if I participated in the type of cowardice that allows a guru to become a predator. Silence is enabling.

Here’s something you said in a Washington Independent Review of Books interview that struck me: “There is a part of me that is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is a very fear-based community in many respects, and I guess I am still waiting for that fear to bite me.” What do you mean by fear-based community?

 “Fear-based community” speaks to exactly this inclination toward silence and cowardice in morally complex situations. It refers to the defensive crouch the Bikram community maintained. It refers to isolating people who voice dissention, ratting out others to get closer to the top because you are worried about your own position, or even feeling the need to exaggerate legitimate benefits of the yoga because you are afraid people won’t see them as satisfactory compared to the hype.

I don’t think most people in the Bikram Community knew all the details of what was going on—and unless subsequent lawsuits are filed, they still don’t (if my experience was accurate, Sarah B. is just the tip of an iceberg). But instead of speaking up when they saw something dubious, they felt pressure to conform. I don’t want to undervalue this pressure—it was based on huge financial ties, careers and bank loans, huge interpersonal ties, a supportive community and knowing firsthand how much the yoga could changed lives—but if that pressure defines your community, then the possibility for someone to abuse it is present.

Another quote from that interview: “The attitude that yoga is somehow exclusively virtuous, and therefore exclusively safe, might be the most dangerous idea of all.” Can you expand on this?

I think people should always be wary of anything sold as “the answer.” That is a sign that you are being asked to check your critical thinking functions at the door. It makes people enormously vulnerable. And I think yoga—because it kind of waltzed into the West from India and was immediately romanticized—is very susceptible to this mentality.

In your book, you talk about narcissism and charisma as being two sides of the same coin. Having myself worked closely with a yogalebrity on par with Bikram, I notice a lot of similarities in their personalities and in their relationships with the teachers and yoga students around them. Egomaniacal craziness seems to be the domain of many of the bigger yoga teachers. The question is whether fame and success breeds narcissism, or is it that the charismatic narcissists have a bigger chance of gaining success? Do you think it’s possible to separate charisma from narcissism?

Great questions. I don’t know. I have such limited experience with true charismatics on the order of Bikram, Steve Jobs or Lance Armstrong. I imagine it’s a classic intertwined dynamic, not an either/or. I do think that the pressure toward narcissism must be intense, just as the pressure to take advantage of natural charisma unimaginable. There is a great Chris Rock line about Republican Senators hounding Bill Clinton: “Ain’t no 20-year-old girls trying to blow Orrin Hatch… You ain’t never gonna hear Newt Gingrich go ‘Man I wish these hoes would back up off me.’”

In many ways, it is because these pressures are so intense that the community needs to maintain standards—protect the leader from him or herself.


A quote of yours from the book that grabbed me: “Yoga is simply one of those thing impervious to certainty, as incapable of corruption as it is of authenticity. And no amount of bossy, possessive attempts to claim a ‘real yoga’ will make it otherwise.” First of all, amen. Second, what do you mean when you say that that yoga is incapable of authenticity and corruption?

Just that once you go beyond very basic definitions—i.e., “yoga is union”—and into practical techniques and methods, there is such a wide and divergent historical umbrella that talking about authenticity is silly. We do it in the West because we romanticize yoga. But like everything else, yoga is the product of diverse communities, all of whom are independently innovating. It would be like fetishizing the one authentic type of “craft” (macaroni art vs macramé) or rejecting a Sioux hunting technique as inauthentic because it was different when compared to an Inuit method. Nonsense.

In light of the recent Sarah Baughn lawsuit, I have to ask: to what extent do you think Bikram’s students, teacher and senior teachers have a responsibility to call him out—or at least choose not to support his yoga? In other words, are they partially responsible for feeding the monster?

Absolutely. I think they are equally responsible. If you surrender yourself to another person or thing you are inhibiting them as much as you are inhibiting yourself.

Along those lines, there’s a lot of talk about Bikram being a narcissist, but what do you think about the quest for extremism of the people who actually choose to do Bikram yoga and to take it to the extremes you described in your book? Outside of the Bikram community, people in the yoga world like to turn their nose up at the idea of yoga competition and say that competing is “not yogic” (whatever that means). But in your book it seems like the spirit of competition actually acts as a positive force in the Bikram world, in certain ways. In hindsight, what are your thoughts about competing in yoga?

I don’t think I’ll ever compete again, but I have nothing but positive reflections on my experience. For me yoga competition was all about subverting my notion of competition rather than subverting my notion of yoga. It was a chance for me to indulge the physical aspect of my practice—which produced more than a few metaphysical benefits, by the way—and share something I cared about with others. Competition in yoga is about being inspired by others and letting that push you to new heights, rather than the reverse that it is in so many other areas where we compete by hoping others fail.

What really comes across in your book is that Bikram is human.  What do you think about the expectation yogis seem to have that their teachers will be spiritually elevated to the extent that they somehow transcend being human and fallible?

I think it is good to have ideals and heroes. I think the idea of a true guru is aspirational and important. But I don’t think we should let ideals, and the hope surrounding them, cloud our judgment. Similarly, the urge to transcend, to push boundaries, is very important—it is one of our best qualities as humans. The obsessives are often the ones who bring us the greatest advances, be it in the political, the technological or the physical realm. But it can become dangerous. I think my point in the book is that we need to pay attention to the balance. We need to study the fulcrum point where these forces sway between the constructive and destructive, and be mindful of the choices we are making.

And when it turns out that our teachers are “only human,” does that negate the effects of the practice?

No way. What else could they be! Discovering your teacher is not some godlike colossus should be comforting and inspirational. It puts your accomplishments in perspective.

Okay, last question. Yogis love to bandy about the marketing buzzword “transformation.” What do you think of this word? Do you think you transformed during your Bikram experience?

I sure hope so. We’re all constantly transforming. Its one of the best parts of being human. And so even if the word occasionally becomes a little buzzy—some yogic counterpoint to teeth whiteners and antioxidants—I’m still ready to revel in it. People can do the most beautiful and unexpected things.

 Benjamin Lorr’s website 

None of us need to be encouraged yet again to follow our inner guru.

Not a day passes without somebody posting another homily from the Dalai Lama or Martin Luther King Jr. or Albert Einstein or Big Bird reminding us that the deepest truths lie within our own hearts.

Actually, sometimes following your inner guru can be a whole lot like the 1212 CE Children’s Crusade, when a charismatic 12-year-old French boy who had received a holy vision persuaded several thousand other young, poor and disenfranchised folks (he must have been a real good talker) to embark with him on a journey to the Holy Land to free Jerusalem from the infidels. Some turned back when the sea did not part for them as prophesied, some starved, some perished in a shipwreck, and the rest were sold into slavery, probably by their fellow Christians. Not one of them made it to the Holy Land alive. Where, by the way, their plan had been to subdue the unbelievers with love.

When you imagine you’ve found your inner guru in your own bosom, you might want to pause and reflect. Don’t get too excited; don’t get too carried away, as they say. Consider that your inner guide might, just might, be delusional.

It’s because of misadventures like this that humans long ago invented teachers.

Of course, by now we’ve all heard enough horror stories about out-of-control teachers—drugs, sex, rock’n’roll, money-—to  be properly cautious. But somehow we keep giving our inner teacher a complete pass.

It’s as though, since some teachers can’t be fully relied upon, the only possible option left is to trust only your own mind. So what happens when your own mind is a house of mirrors? You know.

This is why humans long ago also invented practices. Practices outlive teachers, generally. Real practices incorporate the experiential wisdom of many generations. They’ve been tested and tweaked, and the trash tends to get thrown out. Over time, real practices grow and evolve to suit the changing needs of their practitioners, to remain relevant and suitable.

When in doubt, trust the practice.

But here comes the fun part: real practices always come packaged in flesh-and-blood teachers, and the depths of any real practice can only be fully passed on by person-to-person transmission, by putting yourself in the room with a real, live teacher, and by giving yourself over to that teacher, at least provisionally. Books won’t get you there, YouTube won’t get you there. A dead guru won’t get you there. Why? They can inspire you (we all love that), but “Dead gurus don’t kick butt” (which we’re not so fond of).

What’s a poor boy to do? Nobody ever said this being-human thing was going to be easy. We’re all just wanderers on the path here, after all.

My only suggestion is try not to go it alone.

Get a teacher. Do your best to find a real teacher teaching a real practice. And then spend real time with them. A lot of time—as much as you can, even when it’s not convenient. Don’t waste time telling yourself, or anybody else who will listen, what you think you already know about the practice. Look, listen, taste, feel, smell what the teacher knows—or imagines she knows. At the very least, you’ll have pleasant company on the road to bedlam.

 About Tony Briggs

Tony Briggs studies with some of the most accomplished yogis in the world in the early days of his training: B.K.S. Iyengar, Judith Lasater, Manouso Manos, Ramanand Patel and Zhander Remete. In the last ten years, he has also studied Taoist Chi Gong with Larry Johnson. Today, Tony teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area—particularly the North Bay—and invites student of all levels who want to penetrate into the depths of yoga, where the truth lies. You can find more information about Tony at www.tonybriggsyoga.com.

For as much as we live in the present, there was always a life before. I had a life before.

Before  lecturing privileged adults on the glories of Virbhadrasana II, I did time in Chicago, Illinois, teaching mean children how to read. I wear with honor the marginal success I enjoyed, though I fully acknowledge my shortcomings. And the violent results of my spectacular failures. I left Chicago to teach yoga and write in Boston, but this life  before will always be part of me.

Since becoming a yoga teacher, I’ve noticed that my snapshot description of this life before—namely, that I once worked with “mean” kids in Chicago—has occasionally drawn ire in the sometimes delicate, oft-emotional yoga world.

I’m not sensitive, nor do I feel the need to clarify things I say in jest. But my own flip depiction of those years in Chicago provides a good opportunity to examine how we’ve gone off the rails with our yogic philosophies.

I’m not trying to convert anyone from the other side of the Argument Chasm. If, right this very second, you are steeling yourself to wear your coat of nerve endings, then you will likely not be interested in my words. And, if you cannot have a sense of humor about yourself or the things around you, well, you might want to stop reading.

Somehow, in the midst of trying to better ourselves, we’ve taken a universal approach to sensitivity and blanketed all our statements with empathic kindness. Because yogis are supposed to be all sunshine and unicorns and happiness all the time, right?

We, the yoga people, are so nice.

Um.

Here’s the thing. Actually, here are three things:

1. Doing yoga does not make you some kind of reformed saint. I do not call myself a “yogi” and I do not identify with attempting to be all kinds of perfection all the time. Sometimes I’m not in a good mood. I say rude things or hold opinions other people hate. I’m a human who likes to take bendy classes and clear my head and learn things. I get better at stuff every day. I’m not claiming to be a Buddhist healer. And this, too, is equanimity.
2. Being kind does not mean masking your true emotions. It doesn’t make you a better person to pretend to be happy. Posting forty-seven Rumi quotes on Facebook does not invest your compassion in a Karma bank. It has to be genuine to be worth it. It follows that we can’t simply slap a label of “kindness” on a judgment and thereby make it fact instead of opinion. If you want to be judgy, great, but own it without hiding behind the name of yoga.
3. Being sensitive does not inherently make you a champion for the voiceless. Action does that. And this is where it might be helpful for me to explain that tricky part about describing my life of before.

My students do not belong in a snarky yoga piece on the Internet or as an anecdote in a passing conversation. They are mentioned as part of how I got to be where I am now, but they are intentionally blanded out to dampen the devastating magnitude of their collective oppression. They had every right to be angry and not many other options to be anything but mean. To speak of them as part of an inspirational narrative takes their reality away. To speak of them as downtrodden applies an inappropriate pathos to their charge. To speak of them as having a right to violence lowers the standard to which I will steadfastly hold them for as long as I live.

I had a life before. I speak of it irreverently because that life is made of children who deserve far better than fear, pity or exploitation. To be truly reverent takes well more than a short paragraph about me. To be truly honest takes a loss of sensitivity. To truly be a champion for the voiceless, sometimes you have to go hang out with mean people and create out of them chances to be less mean. And you’ve got to have a sense of humor while you do it.

If that offends you, you are welcome to create your own world of sunshine and unicorns and happiness all the time.

About Kate Stone

Kate started taking yoga in middle school as a rebellious move against sports camp. After years of gymnastics, not having to flip over after a backbend was a relief, and the practice stuck. After college, Kate moved to Chicago to teach mean children how to read. She was marginally successful but felt severely, physically ill-equipped to deal with the fighting in her classroom. As someone who takes things literally, she became a personal trainer. Kate spent eight years in Chicago working in gyms, bars and museums, feeling like she was supposed to have a real job. Last year she realized she doesn’t ever want one of those. Kate spent all of her money on yoga training, and is now a yoga teacher, writer and bartender living in Boston.

Ready to be in a feature comedy about posers in the pose-off of the century?

The makers of the feature-film-in-development The Yogi™, are holding open casting calls in LA, Denver and Boulder in the next couple weeks. Come try out!

3/27 LA, Yogavidala

3/28 LA, The Jade Apple

4/7 Denver, Samadhi Center

4/8 Boulder, Ad Shakti

The Yogi™  pokes lighthearted but heady fun at the tension between yoga as a spiritual practice, narcissistic gym, and a big business—think Little Miss Sunshine meets Best in Show. Behold:

Casting principals and extras. No previous acting (or yoga) is required, just a positive attitude and willingness to have fun! Please bring a resume and headshot (if you have one), and something to read for the audition. Please RSVP for a spot to zerbinivalentina@gmail.com.

I heard a story from a friend of mine in the music business. She was left alone at a dinner table with Sting, and, to break the uncomfortable silence she said, “You know, we have something in common.” He said, “Really?” She said, “Yes. We both do yoga.” He looked at her up and down with just his eyes and said, “I can see that.” She’s very beautiful.

Personally, no one has ever told me I look like I do yoga. I think it’s because I’m too chubby and loud. I’ve done a lot of yoga over twenty years—all kinds of yoga. I really tried to fit in—literally fit into the yoga clothes and onto the yoga mat and into the yoga positions.  In fact, I’ve been doing yoga since 1991, when I did yoga on padded carpet in a dark room in a big gym.  That sucked.  But the Iyengar teacher was super nice. I came back and sweat by myself in the dark, not because the room was a “hot room.”  In fact, it was before “hot yoga.” It was because I sweat a lot and I’m chubby and yoga does that to people.

Ever since I started doing yoga, my favorite yoga clothes have been my bra and underwear. And not because it looks good. It’s because my rolls of skin and bodily tissue pop out of my spandex yoga clothes. Baggy clothes get twisted around me.  When I’m in my properly fitted bra and panties, I feel like I can do anything. Remember when unitards were the yoga uniform? That was not a good look for me, either. Looking good in a yoga class has never been an option for me.

I had teachers who never really understood what to do with me. I was too fat, but not obese (size 12 and tall). I had chins, breasts, belly rolls, broad shoulders, short neck, long torso, short arms, short legs, knock knees and tightness all around. My clothes were like sausage casing on me. What they saw baffled them. But at the end of class, many teachers would give me this look, sort of smiling, really just incredulous, and ask me, “Who are you?” Not like “Wow, you must be somebody important and I should know who you are.” More like “How does someone who looks like you do all that yoga?”

Why did a chubby young lady decide to drudge on the yoga path?

I suppose there came a point where I really did not care what people saw.  I felt really good on the inside.  Over the years, my practice became better and better.  I taught yoga. I even co-founded and managed an LA yoga studio. But I still had to lift weights just to be able to do a push up into Chaturanga. In fact, I recently discovered through lab tests that I have a ton of muscle all over my body. I even had a regular Ashtanga practice for over a year, until my lumbar disc ripped. I say it’s from all those forward folds. But, really, I think that while yoga is supposed to be for everyone, some yoga is really only for a chosen few. Maybe they have other bulging things that they have to work on.

I could give up my joy of good food and follow all the rules of disciplined eating and nutrition so that my body is a temple of the yogic kind. Maybe it’s not so much a temple as just my favorite home to live in—warm, full of good things to eat, laughter and acceptance of who I am. I don’t run away from myself. I’m quite happy finding my own way through yoga poses. Maybe I don’t look like a yogi at a glance. But if you want to be stuck with someone alone at a dinner table, you would probably want to be with someone who actually enjoys being at the dinner table.

About Barbie Eriksson

Barbie Rebecca Eriksson writes from the gut and sometimes the heart, too. Wife, sister, daughter, friend, yoga teacher, lawyer, business manager and perpetual student are just some of the titles she holds. She loves physiology, anatomy and chemistry and still can’t deny her passion for vedic astrology, symbolism, crystals and any philosophy that sounds cool. Barbie now lives and teaches yoga and breathwork in Austin, Texas after calling Stockholm, Sweden, Los Angeles, New York City, Cleveland and Puako/Kona home. Like her page on Facebook.

I started practicing yoga when I was an expat in China. I didn’t speak a lick of Chinese at the time, and none of the classes were offered in English. I signed up for a two-year membership right way. Nobody said I make the best decisions.

The yoga studio I went to was very competitive. It’s an unspoken rule in China that the female patrons make sure they are dressed to the nines in expensive yoga gear so they can look the prettiest. They also compete to be the best in every yoga class, bending and twisting whichever way they can. Once I was in a class where two women sitting next to each other wore the exact same outfit! What sacrilege! Let’s just say they both worked their butts off (well, as much as you can in a yin yoga class, anyway) to prove who was the best. Maybe the prize was the right to wear that expensive outfit again?

Men go to yoga studios to pick up women. Why wouldn’t you want to be the only male surrounded by twenty other females and have your pick of them?

I became quite competitive within a few months of doing yoga there. No, I couldn’t afford the fancy outfits. Nor did I want to pick up a man during a class; I was happily married thankyouverymuch.  But I did work to make sure I could go the deepest in triangle pose and rock a headstand like nobody else.  I constantly looked around me and thought about how awesome I was compared to everyone else.

One day, I decided to sign up for a Sunday workshop with a yoga teacher I’d been going to for months.

She usually did the same type of yoga each time, so I didn’t have a second thought when signing up—even though the course name was in Chinese. I headed over to the classroom, sat on a mat, and waited for class to start.

To my surprise, a staff member rushed in, all in a tizzy, and plopped down a 4-liter water bottle in front of me. I noticed that everyone around me had a bottle as well. The teacher then walked in with a box of what looked like salt, started opening the bottles one by one, and poured a little into each bottle. Everyone around me closed the lid and shook their bottle. I did the same.  The teacher then sat down and spoke a bunch of gibberish. I of course nodded my head like I understood.

Here comes the best part. We poured the water in a cup and guzzled it down. We then stood up and went through a sequence of five poses. At this point, I was clueless. In about fifteen minutes, we drank more water and people start running out of the room. Some came back looking exhausted. I started feeling queasy. My stomach was bloated. It was rumbling. I alternated between drinking salty water and doing yoga poses for another ten minutes before I realized what was really happening.

For those who aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, I went to a Shankhaprakshalana class.

In English, this translates to something like “intestinal wash.”  Without going into too much detail, the point of this process is to clean out all the gunk so your body can function optimally. Kind of like a detox.  Drinking the salty water and doing the yoga poses was a way for the water to help clean out our systems.

So here I was, in a yoga class, with the intention of competing with other people, but I couldn’t because I was too worried about my bowels. I think I must have screamed and ran as fast I could to find some relief. I did this six more times over the course of two hours.

I was in pain, and did not care about being the best anymore. All I wanted was for this torturous episode to end. I was so relieved when the teacher signaled the end of class. I showered and hoped to forget about the whole thing. But, alas, more of my “ego” was released throughout the day. I kept having to excuse myself.

That was the last time I bragged about a yoga class and how awesome I was at it. I also made best friends with Google Translate to ensure that this type of episode never happened again.

About Sarah Li Cain

Sarah Li Cain is an international educator, Ashtangi, freelance writer and blogger. She has recently delved into the world of entrepreneurship and being more mindful through Ashtanga. She documents her failures and successes at sarahlicain.com and her yoga journey at mumbledjumbles.wordpress.com. You can follow her on twitter (@slicain).

Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the year 1000: walking around smiling, trying to earn enough to eat, while neurotically doing these little self-proofs in our head about how much better we are than these other slobs, while simultaneously, in another part of our brain, secretly feeling woefully inadequate to these smarter, more beautiful people.
—George Saunders

I was reminded of this quote this morning when a friend posted on Facebook his desire to start a photography portraiture project, the goal being to distill each subject’s essence, at that moment in time, to one shot. THE shot. He hoped to capture each person’s true self at that moment in time through a singular image. Ambitious, I thought. Maybe impossible. Still, interesting.

I tried to imagine my shot and what it would say about me. Where would I sit? How I would pose or de-pose myself (loving that dual meaning of testifying, telling sworn truth)? What would I wear? Because I work in advertising, I switched into autopilot mode, considering all the facets of my personal brand. I imagined how the shot might be staged and what props might be arranged to tell the most compelling story of me: My old typewriter, an ivory nib pen from an antique store in Vienna, stacks of poetry books, my collected editions of Lolita, an impossible-to-procure-stateside bottle of Amer Picon, a vintage kimono, a Persian lantern, a pair of vintage YSL sunglasses.

Then, just as quickly, I dismantled this conjured assemblage, recognizing how much these objects are superficial signifiers of the me I want to project, arranged neatly by the categories under which I’d file myself on a mental Pinterest board: Writer. Reader. Traveler. Cook. Francophile. Bonne Vivante. I asked myself, are these objects the ephemera of the actual me or the aspirational me?  And why does their appearance here, arranged in black and white, on a page, suddenly make me feel sick? Why does the me I just constructed in my head sound like a hideous facsimile of the impossibly annoying Carrie Bradshaw character who inexplicably wrote a weekly sex column and still afforded a ridiculously luxe existence? The story of Me that emerged from my chosen objets suddenly made me feel like a silly caricature, and that, in turn, made me feel ill.

I thought again about the challenge.

What would authenticate The One Shot that captures me in this moment in my life? None of the objects I’d initially identified reflect the emotional states, the vulnerabilities, the fears, the flaws, the mistakes, the midlife woes. What elements in the portrait of Authentic Me would capture the sleepless nights during spates of little or no freelance work, the internal struggle between creativity and commerce, the shame at having abandoned poetry to make a comfortable living, the realization I would not be having children, the anxiety about not knowing if I even wanted them in the first place, the year of acupuncture to treat said anxiety during which I was told to focus on birthing a book instead, and the subsequently rejected book proposals. What props would I assemble to tell those stories, the stories that reflect the underlying me of recent years far better than the beautiful souvenirs with which I surround myself?  The Shot would have to be something more authentic, more essential to my being. Something unselfconscious captured in a countenance, an expression, a gesture. Something like the je ne sais quois that inspired countless treatises on the Mona Lisa’s half smile or the myriad contradictions said to be communicated by The Girl With The Pearl Earring.

Can one even sit for a portrait and hope to convey Truth?

Does the intention to capture something real negate that possibility? Even if it’s possible, very few of us are brave enough to strip away the filters and self-censorship to really lay it bare. Every day, we choose what to say and wear in the street, what to share and post on social media. But what if we were all administered sodium pentothal before presenting our public personae?  Who would we be in each other’s eyes if we actually sought to make each gesture the Truest Reflection Of Who I Am In This Moment? I looked back at my own Facebook page and imagined how it might read with that truthiness in mind. I imagine, for example, that the summer of 2009 would have focused a lot less on the glories of a month-long home exchange in Paris and a lot more on the plumbing system that exploded a day before our French exchange family arrived. Instead of smug posts like:

Jamie Shaw is enjoying un petit peu du fromage et du vin while making a merguez dinner.

Or gluttonous proclamations like:

Just consumed the marrow of some freakishly large bones. Quelle décadence! 

Or precious vignettes like:

Pamplemousse. Pompidou. Pommes Frites.

My entries might have read:

Literal shitstorm. The entire plumbing system just exploded and the French exchange family arrives tomorrow.

or

Saved $5K for a month in France and now, with one ill-fated flush, owe $13K for new plumbing system.

or

Been crying for 2 months straight. Blaming it on acupuncture, but know it’s a midlife meltdown.

Each one of those statements would be an accurate snapshot of my life in 2009. Whether they’re more or less true than the portrait that emerges from the rosier posts is up for debate. My reality from that time lies somewhere between idyllic picnics on the Seine and a trench of raw sewage in my front yard. And that is not a shocking revelation, that’s life. But with that dichotomous juxtaposition in mind, I suddenly realized that the picture that most signifies me right now, at this moment in my life—that Shot-with-a-capital S—already exists. Fittingly, it was taken this past Halloween. I am, appropriately, in costume, playing something I’m otherwise not, which is, in a cruel comedic twist, that iconic but loathsome symbol of Frenchness: the mime.

This picture, I realized, speaks volumes, revealing not only my personal fondness for dressing up, chowing down, wearing false eyelashes and embracing things French, but also the inevitable filters we impose: the masks we wear, the silence we hide behind, the expressions we paint, the measured tears we allow.

And maybe that’s the truest, most perfect picture of Me today. A sad clown wearing a smart pea coat and eating a hot dog.  Somehow, it’s a portrait I rather like. Somehow, c’est parfait.

About Jamie Shaw

Jamie Shaw is a freelance copywriter and brand strategist living in Mill Valley, CA. She is currently co-authoring the book Peruvian Power Foods, due for release in October 2013. You can learn more at her not-often-updated website, jamieshaw.net. 

I’m an avid believer in all the woo woo shit.

I’m a yoga teacher. I meditate. I get acupuncture. I study Reiki. My love for massage is borderline creepy, and craniosacral therapy blows my mind. (Not quite sure what the hell it is or does, but it’s a cool word and it seems that I’m always willing to pay for more.) I carry around a Ziploc of assorted flower essences, which I only ever use in private because I don’t want to appear completely crazy. Additionally, or in spite of all this, I am a completely rational, highly educated woman who recognizes that our alternative community is becoming unhinged, and that we need to make some significant changes before we pull a Charlie Manson.

The world of yoga, energy work and westernized non-Western medicine is currently consumed by glowy rainbows-and-unicorns talk that bears striking resemblance to the marijuana haze of the 1960s peace-and-free-love-for-all spirit. We are entranced by the idea that “trusting in the process” will liberate us from suffering. Rarely does anyone dare to question or raise a red flag.

But flags do need to be raised.

Last November, I put my trust—and my body—in the hands of a healer to address some deeply emotional and intimate issues. The technique  claimed to be a type of energy work similar to craniosacral therapy, meant to clear energy blockages and ignite sexual fire, enabling eros to flow freely through the client, whatever the hell that means. In hindsight, I should have been alerted by how non-descript the website was. But I was desperate.

I ignored the intuitive voice telling me to bail on this treatment and instead convinced myself (as I have been told repeatedly) to “trust the process.” While lying on the table, this healer felt and prodded at his leisure. At one point, he lay on top of me and said that he was letting himself get aroused. “Part of the process,” he assured me. Everything in my being was telling me to scream and run away, but like a cult follower, I told myself to trust. If it was making me convulse and cry and want to kick this dude in the balls, then it must be working. It must just be my “shit coming up.”

But it wasn’t. I felt completely violated.

It is the job of the healer to respect the client’s boundaries, to ensure the client feels safe. This “healer” did the opposite. And at the end of our session, he revealed his true intentions when he said, “I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.”

Afterward, my state of shock was quickly replaced by horror and disgust. He tried to convince me that the anger, the shame, the guilt I was feeling was, of course, all “part of the process.” He said that I should let the feelings arise and that, later, the “dust would settle.” Sounds wonderful, sure. But is this any different than what a pedophile says to his victims to keep them quiet? As the day passed and distance gave me some much-needed perspective, I realized how entirely fucked up the experience was.

This response of “be with whatever is coming up for you” has gone viral. Although significant, my experience is not unique. I have shared stories with many women who, in the name of healing, have suffered degrading and violating experiences.

We are cultivating this “no questioning” mentality in our yoga classes as well.

Sometimes the teacher makes a mistake, gives an improper cue, or simply puts his ego and his scripted sequence ahead of the wellbeing of the student. How often do we read about shoulder injuries in vigorous vinyasa classes from an under-prepared student doing too many chaturangas or having improper alignment in vasisthasana? And what about the innumerable Bikram-related back injuries that plague yoga discussion pages on the Internet?

I could talk about the need for greater requirements for teachers, how we are turning over training completion certificates like a puppy mill, how wrong it seems that being Yoga Alliance–registered and having yoga insurance is more important to many studio owners than enforcing qualifications and reviews of their teachers. But instead I will end with one simple argument:

We need to stop encouraging our students—and ourselves—to simply “trust the process,” to stop questioning, to swallow whole. As yoga teachers we have a duty to take care of our students. They come to us for help. We cannot allow our egos to come before the safety of those we are blessed to serve.

The same goes for other healers.

We cannot believe blindly in everyone that claims to be a healer, let alone embrace each new modality that arises (and they seem to be sprouting up like weeds) with unquestioning acceptance of all things non-Western. There are individuals out there using the umbrella of “healing” for their own benefit and are harming others in the process.

As members and as leaders of this community and—I argue—this industry, we have a duty to our students, to our peers and to ourselves to take a closer look at what we are practicing, what we are preaching, and what we are taking at face value. We must aim for greater presence and greater restraint. We are lifeguards. We need to lay off the bong hits and start acting as such.

About Mira Rubiano 

Mira is a seeker, a traveler, a nomad-at-heart. She is currently based in Burlington, VT, where teaches yoga and lives with her husband and kitties. She uses writing to explore and share her understanding of cultural nuance and channel her inner-crazy. Having a borderline-fetish for foreign languages, Mira puts her Spanish and Portuguese to work as a freelance producer and translator, accompanying news and journalistic reportage teams on assignment in Latin America. She shares her travel experiences and other musings on her blog, www.mirarubiano.com .

I was writing my to-do list this morning. I always start with the day and date just like this: Tuesday, February 25, 2013. And it hit me. Hard. Seriously, what the fuck? It’s 2013. It was shocking! I know this is old news to most of you, but for me it meant finally accepting something that I have been avoiding for two months: It’s over. All of it.

Buying a lottery ticket is a favorite pastime. I don’t buy them because I think I’ll win. That’s not likely. In fact, I have a better chance of surviving an airline ocean crash landing, then being attacked by a shark, and then being struck by lightning than I do of winning the lottery. I buy the tickets because it provides me with hours of fantastical, imaginative entertainment. The things I will buy, the places I will go, and the stuff that I’ll do: it’s amazing! You would not believe my post-lottery-win life. If you saw my post-lottery-win life you would cry.

That was 2012 to me, but so much more. 2012 was a massive, universal, larger-than-a-stupid-little-California-state-lottery-ticket TICKET. 2012 was the final lottery. And now it’s gone.

It was going to be amazing.

Scenario Number One: Global weather and seismic disasters. Financial and governmental crises like we have never seen. The electricity stops working, like in that show on NBC. Civilization comes to a standstill. There is a zombie apocalypse, like that show on AMC. Humanity splits apart—fighting zombies without any electricity is hard. People can only try to survive. They are scared, hungry, tired, lost, on the verge of losing everything that makes them human, regressing to pre-Neanderthal tendencies. But not me! This is my time to shine. I stand up, like a Jesus/Val Kilmer type, and lead the people, all people. I am wise. Profound. Strong. And Jewish, like Jesus and Val Kilmer.

Scenario Number Two: Humanity magically and wonderfully enters into an era of enlightenment. We all go to bed on December 21st, 2012 and wake-up like Jesus/Val Kilmer on December 22nd. We’re wonderfully, effortlessly kind, humble, wise, relaxed, creative, brilliant, soft, strong, peaceful and bright. We’re also tan and toned. We’re beautiful. The constructs of past philosophies, ideologies, governments, religions and economies collapse. This is awesome. This is exactly what we want. We cheer! Everything falls apart and together at the same time. And I knew this would happen. I am prepared for it. I publish a manifesto: “Interfacing Consciousness In Liberated Constructs.” I am a prophet philosopher king. Daisies and bunnies forever.

But I woke up on December 21st, 2012 to nothing except my alarm and the urgent need to get to work. I must say, the energy did feel amazing. In retrospect, however, it’s probably safe to say that I was still intoxicated from the night before. I waited all day, and just as my intoxicated glee waned to a professional hangover, my excitement evaporated to mild disappointment. I did what I do best and avoided the emotion. I went to bed, and again nothing was different on December 22, 2012. I did this for more than two months. There were glimmers of hope—a giant storm called Nemo, a meteorite slamming into Russia (haha, Russia!), and a crazy Rambo running around Southern California on a killing spree. Perhaps the Mayans missed it by a few days? Forecasting into the future isn’t easy, especially thousands of years ago when forecasting a couple of thousand years forward, without the assistance of computers and modern math. Maybe they screwed it up a bit? Maybe it’s still happening!

But today I realize for sure: everything is still the same. Nothing is going to happen.

I am still me, and reality is still real. Things are sometimes hard. Things sometimes work out. I have to work at not being an asshole. I have to work at my relationships. I have to work at my work. I have to work at being with myself. I have to work to not feel that I am in the process of regressing and might one day end up like the homeless man that stands in front of my office every day yelling “Suck it dry!” over and over. Change and growth do not come easily. Success does not come naturally. Effort is required. Patience is required. And instead of waking up to everything falling apart (Scenario Number One) or everything being magically awesome (Scenario Number Two), or even waking up to winning the lottery, I wake up to myself and reality to live another day, to fight a little harder, and to accept myself a little more.

For generations in the perceivable past, we humans have always believed that there is an impending doom/salvation. We seem to be wired to believe in something better/worse. And now there is nothing on the horizon. There is no impending end. There is no impending evolution. That was it, and it’s over. I am left with myself and reality and the effort that I give both. And without the distraction of impending death/evolution, I’ll get to spend some time and effort and perhaps grow just a bit. Just a little bit.

About Kris Nelson

Kris Nelson is founder and principal at Krama Consulting and Development, Inc. Kris leads workshops internationally on spirituality for the modern world. He lives in Los Angeles where he can be found teaching yoga in jeans to Snoop Dogg.

Find Kris on Twitter.

It is my belief that the heart of a man burns with a steady fire, stoked to rage, that keeps his family safe and his enemies at a distance.  At best, it is quietly simmering underneath a sheath of composure, ready to be called upon, looking for any reason to explode into a fury, so that man can feel alive again—so that he can be experiencing the very thing he was put on this earth for.

But some of these guys keep talking about how they’ve found peace and calm; they don’t get angry anymore, and they have compassion for all humans.  And some of the women are encouraging this strange behavior by pretending they are into it.

I can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about men who are in touch with their feelings and have a gentle nature.  Women sit around and talk about it like it’s a good thing.  Guys who have cut off their own connection to anything related to anger or aggression.  Those feelings do not exist in their “being.”

This is somehow desirable.

Women apparently want a guy to make sweet and passionate love to them while telling them how beautiful they are, all the time.  While I agree it is good for men to be more sensitive, they cannot possibly disregard their nature.

I recently saw a rant one of my Facebook yoga friends went on: “He is just totally at peace.  He loves all humans.  He surfs, does yoga and meditates all the time to keep the peace that is naturally in his heart.  He is so sweet to me and never gets upset about anything.”

Meanwhile, I’m down the street bending my girlfriend over her dresser so I can fuck her in front of her mirror.  She seems to like it.

In college, a kid that I did not like broke my bathroom door.  He did it on purpose and made a joke about it to my roommates.  He thought he was very cool and brave.  I came home later that night and found the door cracked in half.  I didn’t deserve that; it was unprovoked behavior.  I didn’t have much time to think before I ripped the door off the hinges and carried it across the street to his apartment.  When he opened the door and saw me standing there with my own door in my hands he did not seem very brave or tough.  In fact, he backed himself into the corner of his apartment because he was so afraid to face the consequences of his actions (me).  I did not hurt him, although I wanted to.  I left my broken door on the floor of the apartment and told him to take care of it.

I didn’t start doing martial arts and yoga because I am a peaceful person.  I don’t meditate because I’m so goddamn thankful to be alive that I can’t wait to sit and be present with myself and the world around me.  I don’t really like the world around me.  I meditate so that when I open my eyes I don’t feel like pushing random people down the stairs.  I am trying to see the world in a better light, I am trying to be a better person, and I am trying to make the world around me better.  I’ve experienced serenity and peace through different outlets; I know the feeling.  But like all feelings, it’s fleeting.  It’s nowhere for a man to call home.   A man’s home is in his tenacity.  Remove the fire from a man and you’re left with someone disconnected from reality and his own existence, broken.  Not resolved, but rather retired from dealing with life.  Disconnected.

I have yet to see a man in the world with pure peace in his heart.  We are lucky to get glimpses, and that is it.  Some people attach to the glimpses because the return home is too painful.  I can’t blame them; life is hard, but the fight is worth it when you are journeying to discover who you are as a person.

I am a man, and sometimes I get angry.

It’s ok for me to punch things (preferably in a constructive way these days).  It’s ok for me to want to fuck instead of making love.  The art of war is beautiful to me; it’s not scary.  I would be more scared if I shut off sections of my personality to cope with life.  Believe me, I’ve done it, and it feels a lot like marrying someone you don’t love.  I’ve faced a lot—sometimes with my fists clinched and sometimes with an open heart.  It just depends on the situation.  I do not wish to have enemies or fight for no reason, but I will not ignore conflict as a means of being peaceful.

We are evolving as humans and spiritual beings, without a doubt.  But we are not changing into things that we are not.  We can recreate ourselves a hundred times and our problems will still find a way to catch up with us.  It’s not sad; it’s an opportunity to stand up and face ourselves, who we truly are.  That is what it means to be an evolved man.

Beauty is passion.  Passion painted the universe.  People on fire give us all reason for living.

And ladies, let’s be honest, are you really into these men that talk about how calm and passive they are?  It’s not hot.

About Kirk Hensler

Kirk Hensler was raised in metro Detroit on a steady diet of meat, potatoes and team sports. As a competitive athlete, he relied on his speed, power and dominant attitude to excel. Years later, when he took up martial arts, he was tossed around a sweaty dojo for months by various women and children. One day, while horizontal on the mat, he had the profound realization that their patience and finesse quietly trumped his strength and aggression. This led to an exploration of ancient Eastern philosophies, which, in turn, led Kirk to Taiwan, where he taught English, studied martial arts and ate a lot of delicious and strange street food. When Kirk returned to the US, he began applying what he’d learned to his Western, urban life and to his career as a wellness coach, martial arts instructor, and yoga teacher. Check out Kirk’s hip hop video. 

There’s nothing more powerful than a made up mind.
—This cute guy on a TED Talk I once watched

For a Libra like myself, that really hit home. It takes me forever to make a decision because I’m busy weighing all my options. An astrologer told me once that I am like the horse that starved to death because I didn’t know which bale of hay to eat from first. Yeah, that pretty much sums me up! The good thing is, when I do get around to making a decision, it’s usually a good one.

Last year I took part in a 40-day affirmation challenge with a women’s circle. We each wrote a letter to ourselves, affirmation-style, based on what we wanted to see in various aspects of our lives (i.e. love life, home, career, spirituality, health, and family). It was nice to put all my aspirations on paper and affirm them. It gave me a clearer vision of what I wanted in my life and helped me focus and get clear on my intentions.

Well, intention is a hell of a drug.  Here is a breakdown of some of the affirmations I wrote and how they later showed up in my life:

Love life affirmation:
“I am now in a happy, loving monogamous relationship with my husband who loves and respects me.”

Result: Within three days of writing that affirmation, my marriage ended.

Health affirmation:
“I am emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy.”
Result: With no health insurance, I was prescribed two types of medication to deal with anxiety and depression exacerbated by these life changes.

Career affirmation:
“I now have the career of my dreams and am well paid for it.”

Result: I had to resign from my job to deal with my chaotic home life.

Home affirmation:
“I now have the home of my dreams at a price I can easily afford.”

Result: I gave away or trashed most of my belonging and moved back home with my mom.

Just when I was about to write off Mother Nature as a sadistic bitch with daddy issues, some good began appearing in my life.

Family affirmation:
“I am surrounded and supported by loving friends and family.”

Result: People that didn’t have my best interest in mind all of a sudden disappeared from my life. Other friendships have since been strengthened. I have never felt more loved and supported by my mom and a small circle of friends. My son and I have a much closer relationship. And I now have incredible friends from all around the world, which leads me to…

Career affirmation:
“Travel is a regular part of my life.”

Result: Soon after I left my husband, I hopped a flight to Thailand to continue my Thai massage studies and get the fuck out of Philly. I had an incredible time and met some wonderful friends from almost every continent.

Spirituality affirmations:
“I meditate regularly. I recognize my self-worth.”

Result: I do and I do.

The moral of the story? I’ve spent so much of my life stuck between those two proverbial bales of hay: do I stay at this job or not, do I call my friends on their shit or not, do I actually take responsibility for my life or do I continue to coast through life and hope that one day I’ll be magically happy. Where did my constant indecisiveness get me?  Half-assed friends, half-assed career, half-assed marriage, half-assed spiritual practice, etc. When I focused on and affirmed what I actually wanted and not what I would settle for, shit got real!

I learned that if you really want your world to change, you have to let go of things that have no place in your life no matter how much you love them. You must have faith that these things will be replaced with something or someone better for where you are at this stage of the game. That was a harsh lesson to learn. It was hard enough for me to let go of shoes I couldn’t fit, let alone a whole life I no longer fit! My life was beginning to look like an episode of Hoarders: Recovering Yogi edition with all the crap I was holding on to. I was in dire need of an intervention, and I received just that in the form of affirmations.

Though the last year of my life has been crazy, it’s also been lived and not analyzed to death. I’ve survived the rough patches and reaped the rewards, which have been numerous. With few relapses back into the land of indecisiveness, I do in fact feel more powerful when I make up my mind. That cute TED Talk guy was right.

About Vanessa Butterfly Thunderwolf

Vanessa Butterfly Thunderwolf. is an author, healing arts educator, and singer/songwriter. Her books include Living Our Medicine: Affirmations for Bodyworkers and Divorce in 17 Syllables. You can find her mp3, “Affirmations for Bodyworkers,” on Amazon.com or iTunes. Also, she is addicted to hula hooping and the Twilight movies.

Twitter: @vanessahazzard

Web: www.vanessahazzardtillman.com

Blog: butterflythunderwolf.wordpress.com

Dear Krishna Santa Craigslist?

Whatever.

In the neverending quest to find the “perfect” yoga class, I humbly ask for the following things. I fully realize they are individually unrealistic, and collectively impossible. But it’s worth a shot.

1. Students who listen to the teacher. While verbal cues may often sound like the fancy Twister that you are not drunk enough yet to play, there are some words in yoga that are really not that hard to follow. “Bend your knee” isn’t a trick. You know what it means and you know your leg is still straight. What exactly is happening in your brain that you are still standing there, not bending your goddamned knee? The rest of us are sweating it out in a twenty-minute Warrior II hold because the instructor has to talk to your frozen ass individually.

2. Teachers versed in anatomy. Nothing thrills me more than a well-placed directive about “fascia.” If you can explain the “why” behind the alignment or talk about a muscle that gets little to no daily play, I’m yours. Absolutely. If, however, you tell me to exaggerate the curve in my lumbar spine, compress my cervical spine or otherwise torque my body, you’re dead to me. Same goes for banal cues that you memorized during your weekend teacher training but that don’t work for all bodies.

3. Students who listen to their bodies. It’s a recurring theme that most people have terrible body awareness (or awareness at all—see also: 1, 4 and 6). So when instructors tell you that it’s not a weakness to take Child’s Pose or that bending your back knee might help align your spine in a straight line, BELIEVE THEM. Do not, instead, try the exact opposite in an effort to achieve non-existent Yoga Badassery. This is not a thing. Torn ACLs, though, are totally a thing. 

4. Clutter-free practice space. I won’t lie and say I don’t look like an Arctic pack animal when I walk into a studio. I do. But I place my precious items, culled from the Homeless Man Collection, in the designated space. Your Vita Coco wrappers and water bottles and raw protein bars are turning this into the new movie theater experience. If I wanted to hear you chewing, I would…well, I would never because chewing is the worst sound ever made. So, when the class is crowded and you are happily slurping away, do not get mad at me for moving your string backpack four inches to the left.

5. Teachers who are anal about balancing both sides. OK, this is probably just my crazy showing, but if you do a whole sequence on the right side at six breaths per pose and then you blow through the left side at two breaths per pose, it legitimately makes me feel cheated. Half-pigeon for half as long on the left? Bogus. Time that shit.

6. One more time for good measure: people who are aware of their surroundings. Put your props away the way you found them. You know you didn’t find that block wedged diagonally between the blankets in the back of the room. Be considerate about these tight quarters in which we find ourselves. I might touch your mat by accident or kick you in the face…I’m sorry. But I will try like hell to stay within a reasonable range of motion, and you should really do the same. Also, no cutting in line to get into the room. WTF is wrong with you?! This is yoga. And you’re wearing a Spiritual Gangster shirt proclaiming how much you love LOVE? Get it together and wait your turn.

7. Teachers who do proper (anatomically appropriate) adjustments. Actually, fuck everything else on this list. If you push me further into a pose or pretty much touch me at all, I will consider my practice complete and will Savasana my way into a better day. Every time.

About Kate Stone

Kate started taking yoga in middle school as a rebellious move against sports camp. After years of gymnastics, not having to flip over after a backbend was a relief, and the practice stuck. After college, Kate moved to Chicago to teach mean children how to read. She was marginally successful but felt severely, physically ill-equipped to deal with the fighting in her classroom. As someone who takes things literally, she became a personal trainer. Kate spent eight years in Chicago working in gyms, bars and museums, feeling like she was supposed to have a real job. Last year she realized she doesn’t ever want one of those. Kate spent all of her money on yoga training, and is now a yoga teacher, writer and bartender living in Boston.

Well, I don’t feel so alone that I talk to myself, but all of my conversations feel like soliloquies at times. I have a tendency to talk too much.

Solitude to me is an empty and rusted canteen in the desert whose threaded lips beg the cactus for a sip, a kiss. Solitude is a kiss puckered and blown at no one into the thin air where echoes hide, in between the ribs of the wind, and it howls because it is hollow where it longs to be full. It’s a broken mirror, like puzzle pieces that are all one color and scattered playfully over the span of time and all over the vastness of the universe, waiting for the lone traveller to collect its shards and realize its awe-striking reflection is found in everything. Solitude is a joyful swimmer floating on his own back in a sea of his own tears—it can be rest.

Imagination is a clear blue sky where I fly reveries like kites, I have more time to wonder and wander… I take long walks through skeletal trees and, kicking orange and yellow leaves across cracked sidewalks, I think of thoughts that would’ve never been thought up had the feeling for the need of others never rotted.

Something blossoms in the pottery of solitude. Your stucco smooths itself out; gardeners know. But, I see myself rolling my shoulders forward and scratching my own back against a door jam and extra trips carrying my groceries inside though I am saving money on tea so my money steeps in my wallet longer.

I see myself standing on cypress mountaintops, shimmering just as green. I’m pushing to put my own sol in solitude by polishing myself against the extra pillows in my bed. An abundance of wine; my bedroom transformed into a harem without fine silks, just random women of all shapes, sizes, occupations and shades—I slip their lampshades off like lingerie, I’m good at it. Nothing lonelier than being covered in panties that I didn’t buy, the fast lasses that abound my bachelor pad though.

All paths lead to enlightenment, eventually… I tell myself.

I kick fall leaves into midair and hope that my old skin sheds half as gracefully. I’m juggling the engagement ring that she gave back, rediscovering my pineal gland and the fear of being alone—it’s a three-ringed-circus. Speaking of which, my chakras are aligned like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and at night I stare at Polaris staring back at me. Truthfully, we’re all rock stars against the stark black stages of night, Metallica’s “One” stuck in my head.  I picture tears doing their damnedest to pressure wash a muddy frown into a sparkling smile.

A person in solitude is a boulder standing in a storm long enough to let the raindrops carve them into their own David, marvel at your own marble it says, or be washed away in grief’s wide-mouthed storm drains. Quiet places are the perfect launch pad to rise from your own ashes. Hook your talons into the meat of the clouds and ride the skies, shove your beak into the sun’s bright orange belly button and eat her up. Make her rain. Pound your chest at the storms. Smash all windows if they don’t advertise your reflection. I see a mannequin on display envying my newfound animation.

Solitude is utter surrender to yourself, the only doorway or meditation that makes it possible to grow wings and see things as they really are, as you really are. My solitude terrifies me sometimes, my pillows could be sponges the way that I cry, the silence is haunting, it might as well be a blood-curdling scream in the middle of the night, I’m not used to my own snore, yet it’s a monster in the closet for all I know. I miss her round ass pressing against my hip every night; it was the anchor that allowed me to drift off to sleep and set sail away from the sandy shores, surely she had waves at her beck and call the way she would pitch and roll—I miss that chocolate-colored mole on her right butt cheek.

Solitude is coming to grips with the bullhorns of an overactive imagination, the reckoning of a heart shattered into countless memories and the futile mission of finding glue in a dozen mistresses. Everything is so damn spiritual, even the toaster is designed for transcendence! I’m surrounded by hope subliminally from all angles, therefore I choose to stand stubborn and perpendicular in the storms, a prickly prick, my lips puckered like the threads of a canteen while courting the plumpest cactus in love’s scorching paradise.

My canteen, my teacup. Solitude can be divine polish.

Dear Water Walkers,

There once was a man sitting in perfect union with all, with God, with universe. He sat in the full lotus, in deep meditation while in a storm—a real torrential downpour—and not one drop of rain disturbed him. A large cobra had acted as Buddha’s umbrella while his consciousness steeped in the divine; in his solitude he found true connectivity and calm, ultimately self-love. True love. All paths lead to enlightenment, eventually, I tell myself, and deep down I know that paths like these must be walked alone.

About Jordan Chaney

Jordan Chaney is a spoken word poet residing in Eastern Washington’s wine country. He writes for Winepress Northwest and is the author of two books: Double-Barreled Bible, a collection of urban poems that blends Eastern and Western philosophies, and Rocket Fuel for Dreamers, a collection of poetry written to inspire, uplift and motivate. He currently teaches a poetry and communication skills workshop called Speaking from the Pen at a local juvenile detention center and alternative schools, helping youths find their voices through the power of language. Speaking from the Pen promotes confidence, creativity and communication through performance poetry.

To book Poet Jordan Chaney for workshops, performances or speaking engagements, email: jordanchaneypoet@gmail.com

Imagine yourself at the proverbial cocktail party attended by a variety of people from all walks of life.

Notice how, in any topic of conversation—politics, religion, sports, movies, psychological therapy, societal issues, etc.—everyone seems to have such expert, seemingly inside knowledge of the topic. No one ever takes the position of admitting they just don’t know enough to form a definitive opinion. On the contrary, they will exude an air of knowing. No veil is being pulled over their eyes. And if you don’t agree, well, then you’re just being naive.

In such instances, I always ask myself, how did this person with no experience at all in this particular subject get to have such incontestable inside information about it, which defies the opinion of renowned experts in that particular field?

Whereas, I feel like I know nothing.

And I don’t feel like I’m alone in that. I also think everyone else knows nothing. We all have opinions, strong confident viewpoints. The problem is that most of us consider our own opinions as absolute fact, even though we’ve usually only skimmed the surface of what there is to know about something. If our version is challenged, we go as far as to wage battle to defend it, or at the very least, view the person holding the opposing view with indignation and scorn. But in reality, it’s all speculation or just intuitive inclination.

I’m not even talking about religious beliefs. We all know that the world is full of all kinds of spiritual paths, and the adherents of each are absolutely sure theirs is the one true way. But I think most of us know, when it comes to religion, everybody gets a pass on whatever crazy loony stuff they believe in.

I’m referring more to the locked-in thinking pattern that most of us apply to almost everything else we think about. There are matters that affect our world and how we live our lives—from serious stuff like climate change to silly nonsense like whether a particular movie star is gay or not.

In any subject, everyone knows with certainty.

Very few of us question our own positions on what we hold to be true: politics, morals, the role of society, our place in nature, how we relate to one another, work ethics, the meaning of human life. We all act as though we hold the indisputable truth about most subjects. It just doesn’t seem plausible that all of us can offer an exhaustively dissected dissertation about any given topic at any time.

There are those who spend a lifetime studying and dissecting one particular specialized area, and even they debate among themselves their conclusions. Just to pick a topic, there’s the question of whether we human beings exercise free will or not. There are experts in the field of psychology and philosophy who have PhD degrees, have spent countless hours conducting experiments on the subject, have written well-researched and substantiated books and theses about it, and yet still arrive at opposing opinions with regard to that particular question. Yet the average guy who spends his time selling used cars will tell you, without batting an eyelash and with unqualified certainty, the true answer to the question of whether we exercise free will, just as the woman who works in the accounting department of that used car dealership will tell you, without any doubt whatsoever, that life begins at conception. There is the philosophy professor at the local community college who is convinced that he knows who was really behind the 9/11 World Trade terrorist attack; or the wall street stock peddler who holds the incontrovertible belief that the way to get the economy on track is by having the Federal Reserve engage in quantitative monetary easing in opposition to the view of a Nobel prize–winning economist.

We all operate from a position of knowing it all.

Very few of us look at how we are living our lives, at how we relate to one another, or at the meaning of our existence and say, “I have no fucking clue, but I would like to share my ideas with others and listen to their ideas.” No, we instead form a steadfast belief first and venture forth from that engraved-in-stone attitude, which causes us to shut out anything that differs from that position.

I don’t know this for sure, but my feeling is that we wear this mantle of assuredness because of a conditioned childhood orientation which preaches that those who succeed in life do so because they are confident in their principles and never waver. Those who waffle never get anywhere. It’s the John Wayne way of presenting oneself to the world: self-confident, certain of your ways, and no pussy footing around.

This attitude may be useful for certain endeavors in business, or technological engineering achievements, or even political disputation in order to form legislation, but we unfortunately apply the same tenacity and doggedness to matters of human relations, existential questions, morals and ethics, or worldly subjects of which we only have surface knowledge.

Instead of approaching these questions from a state of wonder (as an infant does with everything it comes into contact with) we begin our observation with an already preconceived and biased intractable notion. It’s as though we shut the door to the infinite possibilities that lie out there for the sharing, because we are afraid to admit that we know nothing.

When I feel that I need to be John Wayne and am afraid to admit I know nothing, I consider this passage from Plato’s Apology where he ascribes the following quote to Socrates:

“He fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.”

About Louis Cortese

Lou , in his life, has been a precocious young boy in an anachronistic town in the mountains of Sicily, an immigrant at the age of 8 arriving by way of an ocean liner to the shores of the west side of Manhattan, a guido from the Bronx, a hippy, a Zen Buddhist, a businessman, a yogi and a conventional family man with three sons and two grandchildren, among other things, none of which describes his true self and all of which in the aggregate do not give a full account of him. If his story is not he, then what is? He’s still looking. Lou’s musings can be followed on his blog http://louiebop.tumblr.com/

I was feeling really down yesterday.

“I don’t make enough money.”

“I work too hard.”

“I’m not appreciated for what I do.”

“No one cares.”

“I should just quit.”

I was throwing myself a real fucking pity party, and of course I found myself squished down the rabbit hole of the internet and emerged out onto a website that blew me away.

The design was gorgeous.
The brand was impeccable.
And what she was offering was my salvation. Words like

Surrender

Clarity

Energy

Desire

Connectedness

Abundance

Home

flew off the screen and into my heart.

She knows.
She knows what I need, and it’s a good price.
I’ll buy.

Because instead of feeling my uncomfortable feelings.
Instead of feeling like a total fucking middle-aged failure, this website gives me hope.
A way out of myself.

The funny thing is that I have done this before. I have bought the online course, the book, the training, the seminar and the weekend workshop. And I’m still searching.

Sure, I got tidbits and clues.

My website runs faster and I understand the law of attraction but really, am I really any better for all the time and money I have spent on this quest?

“But what if this is the one? What if this is the information I need that will change everything?”

“And you found it on the Internet for $250?” 

When it seems too good to be true, it is.

Enlightenment doesn’t cost money.

It costs you your ego.

And my ego is exactly who wants me to buy into this system, to take my mind off my pain and once again streamline my focus into shit-hot copy and affirmations and worksheets.

I’m not saying wellness marketing is bad. I’m saying, like under-eye-wrinkle cream, it doesn’t do much for the long term.

It won’t save you from the darkness.
It won’t alleviate the heavy burden you carry inside.
It just makes you laser focus in on the crow’s feet and fine lines for awhile.

But it always comes back—stronger.
You know this.
I know you know.

Here is my system.

I think it works pretty well, except when you are too broken too bother. Then, just take a break from for a while and watch some Honey Boo Boo clips. I am selling it for $1,000,000. Please send me a personal check because I haven’t figured out Paypal yet.

• Meditate more.
• Try to eat green food.
• Exercise more days than not.
• Whatever you most love to do, do it as much as possible.
• Even if your parents drive you fucking crazy, call them weekly and try to be kind.
• Sleep as much as you can
• Eat your most favorite thing at least once a month.
• Travel somewhere at least once a year (even if it’s on credit).
• Don’t buy any more new clothes. Okay, once a year buy yourself some new clothes (but NOT on credit).
• Assume this is your income stream and your family and your home and your body and this is as good as it’s ever going to get, and breathe that shit in.
• Get comfortable with pain.
• Get comfortable with dark thoughts.
• Call your friends on the phone.
• Trust your gut.
• Write down your goals. Put the paper between your bed sheets. Pray, and then let it go. Once a year, take out the paper, read it, make any changes and repeat for eternity.
• Thank God you were born before going to bed, even if you are not thankful.
• Be gentle with yourself because life is hard and dreams are scary and you are doing the best you can.
• Don’t buy anymore online programs, ever.

We don’t need anyone else telling us what the answer is.

We know what to do.

We have to learn to deal with this.
This.
Deal.
Just this.
Deal with it.
That’s all.

I find laughing helps a lot too.

“Self-acceptance is not a pie-in-the-sky abstract concept, because there is not an abstract self floating around, begging to be accepted. The self is as we experience ourselves: happy one moment, anxious the next; giving now, needy then. The problem is not that we have these shifting and conflicting feelings; the problem is that we take a very conditional attitude toward them. We wish to hold on to some, drive away the others. So, self-acceptance does not mean self-admiration or even self-liking at every moment of our lives, but tolerance for all our emotions, including those that make us feel uncomfortable.”

- Gabor Mate, Scattered Minds

You are smart.

I believe in you.

I’m just as fucked up.

Let’s stop wanting so much.

Instead, let’s try our very best to be who we are, shall we?

About Emelia Symington Fedy

Emelia writes for tryingtobegood.com, a popular social commentary website that tackles spirituality; contemporary feminism; deep, fucked up pain and love—all in the first person. In under a year, with over a million views, tryingtobegood.com offers essays, homemade videos and live storytelling—from her guts to yours.

You’ve probably been (overly) exposed to the idea that everything that you pay attention to “grows.” This is true. Except when you’re staring at yourself in the mirror, hoping you’ll be taller soon, or you keep logging into your bank account, hoping money will magically appear. Which is just to say that—despite all the breezy marketing—the Law of Attraction is not as simple as it sounds.

The one huge thing that tends to be (conveniently) left out of this “attract what you focus on” principle is that conscious thought is just the tip of the iceberg. You can keep telling yourself that you’re happy when you’re not, and you can keep believing that things will magically change if you shut your eyes real tight. You can also choose to believe that your kitchen will clean itself and laundry will magically be folded and put away. Just keep saying “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore” and then click your heels away, wishing for instant transformation, right? Your latest thoughts are just the latest events in your history, though, and as in every good story, there are bigger forces at work.

A lot of people are disillusioned about not being able to get the Law of Attraction to work for them.

The lack of positive results is not the worst part of Law-of-Attraction simplification, though. The worst part is how people wholeheartedly beat themselves up for not being positive enough.

The Law of Attraction often turns into the Law of Accraption: people getting terrified of what they are or aren’t thinking, and judging themselves for it. We start to experience ourselves as crap magnets, where every little unpleasant experience becomes a liability; we get terrified of how it is creating more of what we don’t want. Since there is no real way out of this crazy terror cycle, we’re left no choice but to become superficially upbeat guy-smiley people. The Happy Mask becomes a goal in itself, and all the while we drift further and further from the true source of our problems and their solutions. We can deceive ourselves into thinking we’re okay when we aren’t, thinking we don’t mind when we do, and thinking we like something when we don’t. A part of us may believe that we are cleverly “tricking” the universe into giving us what we want in this way. What we’re actually doing, though, is creating more inner friction.

Truly, the stuff that passes through our conscious minds is peanuts compared to the thoughts that are energized constantly at the back of our minds, without us realizing.

That probably sounds a little creepy. But we have a lot of inner tapes playing continuously. Fretting about the small part of it that we do notice, and trying to control that little percentage of our thoughts, is not so useful. Obsessing over conscious thoughts, and believing that those conscious thoughts will “manifest issues,” points to a great misunderstanding about our inner mechanics.

In many ways, trying to control your thoughts just leads you away from getting to know your inner mechanics better. You have a much better chance of identifying core issues when you allow yourself to notice what you are thinking (and feeling!) and ask what is underneath that.

Otherwise, you just become a mean-ass teacher who deceives herself into thinking that just because she demands that everyone pay attention, everyone actually does. Of course, what is really happening is that more ingenious ways to cop out are being devised by rebellious students. Our own thoughts and feelings are like that. They know when they aren’t wanted, they know how to hide, and they know how to pretend to be something they’re not.

I think we need to rewrite the popular Law of Attraction metaphor to make it more like fishing.

If you sit by the waterside long enough, a fish will swim by. If you have some kind of bait and fishing rod, then you’ll be able to catch the fish. That is what awareness practices are about. They help us catch those elusive big fish that are swimming below the surface of our awareness. Catching one big fish has a much bigger impact than swatting the little insects that skate over the water’s surface.

About Caroline van Kimmenade 

Caroline van Kimmenade is a Happy Sensitive Person who writes about being sensitive (HSP / empath) over on TheHappySensive.com She describes deep happiness as that underlying sense of empowerment that you feel when you know that you have the inner tools to make things work in your life – even if it may take much longer than you’d prefer and you get some cuts and bruises along the way. She has several alter ego’s that tweet as IDSensitivity on twitter ( twitter.com/IDSensitivity ) and is currently busy making non-stinky Facebook posters for her page: www.facebook.com/thehappysensitive

People say that Mother Teresa was an inspirational figure.  I ask my students sometimes to name a role model, and I always hear the answer, “Mother Teresa.”

But what did Mother Teresa actually do?  I know she was into charity and helping the poor and all that jazz, but who was she?  What was motivating her to live this way?  Thankfully. Mother Teresa was pretty web savvy and has a beefy Wikipedia profile.

As it turns out, Mother Teresa was an Albanian, Indian, Roman Catholic nun.  Which sounds exactly like a description of someone who would beat you senseless with a stick for not saying your Hail Marys.  “It’s good for you; it’s God’s will,” she would say, with a stone cold face, as she turned your butt red with her thrashings, possibly picking her teeth with a toothpick at the same time.

She did, however, devote her whole goddamn life to serving Jesus, so she can’t be all bad.

But why did she do it?

There is only one photo of Mother Teresa where she is smiling.  It has been recreated with different backgrounds and color schemes, but it is still only one.  The rest of the time, she looks like my late Nana ten beers deep after her Steelers lost in the playoffs.

I looked a little deeper to see if I could get a better feel for this woman.  And then I found the golden ticket: she racked up more awards for being peaceful than anyone in human history.  She even won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, but refused the conventional ceremonial banquet and gave the $192k prize to poor people in India.  Noble move, right?  I don’t think so.  It wasn’t enough for her to be recognized for the award? She needed to also be recognized as the person who refused the ceremony and the money? Annoying.  She was on a secret, personal mission to be the most peaceful person ever, even surpassing Gandhi.

I suspect that if I could have broken into her apartment I would have found a headshot of Gandhi on the wall with his eyeballs carved out by a knife and darts sticking to his forehead (ok maybe not, but I can dream).  “That son of a bitch was so effective that he got assassinated,” she would mumble under her breath as she stared at herself in the mirror during her daily morning pep talk.  “I’m the most self-less.  That half-naked bastard never won any awards.  I will show the world,” she would continue as she splashed scalding hot water on her aging face just to feel alive.

She set out on a mission to be the most helpful, the most philanthropic, and the most peaceful human ever.  She even went so far as to visit a leprosy colony to help the people that no one else would help.  No one else would help.  What normal person would do something like this?  “Leprosy, oh no thanks, I’m going to sit this one out…those people are fucked,” the other charitable figures would say.  Not MT, that was her opportunity to shine, to stand out amongst the crowd of half-assed helpers.

Charity is something most people do on the side because they feel fortunate to be living a good life and want to give back.

Charitable work is motivated by compassion.  Most people have compassion but are ultimately going to make sure they are taking care of themselves and their families.  That is the nature of our existence.  It’s our biology and it’s our instinct.  It is the sign of a healthy individual.  Perhaps one might argue that some people have a different spiritual purpose during their lifetimes here.  Well, unfortunately, Mother Teresa was one miracle away from being recognized as a saint by the Catholic church, so I guess that shoots that theory down. Bummer.

Too much attention on other people means not enough attention on yourself.  Which usually means something gnar gnar happened, and it is easier to cater to the suffering of others than to fix your own life.  I’m going to make the obvious connection here to a lot of “healers” (barf) and yoga teachers.  They are pretty damn fantastic when you are suffering and need their help.  But try telling them you’ve got it covered, things are under control, and you don’t need them.  “What? You don’t need me?” Watch the healing teacher become the raging bull and suffer a complete meltdown right before your eyes.  The insides of those with the perfect outsides.

What if the poor had refused Mother Teresa’s help and she was left living a life just for herself?  What would her days have looked like if everywhere she went the people told her they were better off without her help?  What if your yoga teachers or your friends didn’t have your problems to dwell on?  What would things look like if everyone was forced to deal with their own shit?  Well, it would be a shit show, I guess. It’s pretty obvious that Mother Teresa was simply the most unhappy person in human history.

Illustration credit: Megan Landry designtaco.com

About Kirk Hensler

Kirk Hensler was raised in metro Detroit on a steady diet of meat, potatoes and team sports. As a competitive athlete, he relied on his speed, power and dominant attitude to excel. Years later, when he took up martial arts, he was tossed around a sweaty dojo for months by various women and children. One day, while horizontal on the mat, he had the profound realization that their patience and finesse quietly trumped his strength and aggression. This led to an exploration of ancient Eastern philosophies, which, in turn, led Kirk to Taiwan, where he taught English, studied martial arts and ate a lot of delicious and strange street food. When Kirk returned to the US, he began applying what he’d learned to his Western, urban life and to his career as a wellness coach, martial arts instructor, and yoga teacher. Check out Kirk’s hip hop video. 

I have a huge ass. Always have, always will. I am perfectly ok with that.

In 2007, I became a mom. During my pregnancy I wanted to try yoga, but my midwife advised against it because I was prone to bleeding when I did certain movements. So that, combined with my affinity for all things pasta, led to me gaining fifty pounds. The rest of my body finally caught up to my giant ass.

No big deal, I thought. I’ve always been active, so I’ll just work it off. Wrong! No one told me that your body is totally different post-partum. My knees were weak; my sacroiliac joint was unstable, which led to sciatic nerve impingement (for all you non-sciency folks, it is literally a pain in the ass that sometimes travels down the back of your leg); and if that wasn’t enough, my cravings for pasta still lingered months after my son was born. Taking a simple walk around the block was excruciating at times. There was also this stabbing pain in my back from the epidural.

About a year later, I decided to take a Thai massage class. During the warm up we did some Kundalini yoga kriyas. It felt nice. Actually, it felt incredible, and I decided to continue to do those exercises at home. The pain in my back disappeared. Kundalini yoga did for me what vicodin and cabernet could not. Unfortunately, the sciatica was still present. I decided to try a vinyasa class because I heard it could help my ass issues. The teacher was awesome and the cues she gave took so much pressure off my hips. Eventually, that pain went away and I decided to become a yoga teacher. Yoga, for me, was a way to get acquainted with my new body and not see my injuries and weight gain as a burden but as obstacles to overcome.

Then, a colleague of mine asked me to co-teach a series of workshops called “Yoga for Thick Jawns” (jawn: Philly slang for just about anything and everyone).

The class was intended to be a safe haven for heavier women to experience yoga in a fun and non-judgmental environment. It was a big success! No pun intended. Being overweight can bring up feelings of shame, embarrassment and isolation that are sometimes heightened in yoga classes. Working out in a room full of thin, scantily clad people with type-A personalities can be vulnerable for some. Add to that, the teacher may not know how to teach to someone with your body, which is not the student’s fault, obviously, but it sucks all the same. (I had a moment when a teacher kept poking at my side and saying out loud, “God, where is your hip bone?”  I was mortified.  It was a small class and everyone heard it. That was the only time I ever felt ashamed of my body in a yoga class.)

I could’ve chosen to give up on yoga and try Zumba instead, but I let it be a reminder to be mindful in my words and actions, and not only in yoga. With all that being said, why would I be hesitant to teach to all big girls? Well, here are some reasons:

• I tend to avoid labels, because from my experience, it only separates people.
• Separation can breed militancy and an “us vs. them” attitude. In this case: skinny vs. fat.
• Heavier people feel comfortable with me as a teacher because I look like them, yet can do yoga poses that they think only skinny people and gymnasts can do. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that I inspire them and they want to learn from me because they see themselves in me. I’m honored, actually. But I don’t want to build a following solely based on my size. What if I lose weight, then what? What if I stay the same weight? Will they still admire me?  Plus, there is enough idol worship in the yoga world. I don’t need to add to it.

I don’t want our bodies to overshadow the message of yoga. I want my classes to be about the student and their body/mind connection.  I want them to begin to know and appreciate themselves, and not just associate with their fat.  Fat comes and goes, but who you are being in that process?  Are you loving yourself? Can you see that there is something within you that deserves to be loved? Are you using your fat as a barrier to be loved and lovable?  Is your identity so enmeshed with your fatness that you cannot separate the two? I’ve had to face those questions, and have come to the conclusion that it all boils down to compassion for yourself, which can be taught in any yoga class.

Correction, it should be the white noise in all yoga classes. If that vital component is absent, it can be hard to connect with yourself. Especially when your environment is triggering and littered with passive aggressive comments and glances. Though I mentioned my hesitations, I recognize there is a need for fuller-bodied people to learn yoga in a space and with a teacher with whom they feel comfortable, and who am I to deny that? I receive messages on a regular basis requesting me to teach “big girl yoga.” Even my mom wants me to teach! Now how can I deny my momma?

About Vanessa Butterfly Thunderwolf 

Besides being a yoga lover, Vanessa Hazzard is an author, internationally trained bodyworker, massage therapy educator and singer/songwriter. When she’s not making up ridiculous songs with her awesome son, you can find her instructing workshops and continuing education courses in the Philadelphia region.  Also, she is addicted to hula hooping and the Twilight movies. Twitter: @vanessahazzard Web: www.vanessahazzardtillman.com