Direct vs. Indirect
As I like to keep this Yoga Matrika blog focused on yoga and take a mindful approach to all issues, I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to bring this highly charged issue to the blog. I decided to bring it here, not to have a debate on abortion—right or wrong? Legal or illegal? Instead, I wanted to question and explore what happens when we fail to use all of our intelligence to consider challenging questions. The original posting is below and it is from the Women’s Health Policy Report that is put out weekly by the National Partnership for Women and Families.
The issue in the article, in case what I have already said has infuriated you or led you to believe that you don’t want to or just can’t read any further, is that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have made a clarification on abortion. Direct abortion is when you terminate a pregnancy for the only purpose of terminating the pregnancy. In summary, direct=bad, very bad, super bad. Indirect is when a pregnancy is terminated in order to save the life of the mother. In summary, indirect=bad, very bad, super bad, but allowable in extraordinary circumstances.
When I read this, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Part of me wanted to laugh out loud thinking about all the meetings and arguments of the men in charge as they debated the difference between direct and indirect abortions. Seriously, any woman who has ever been pregnant and any man who has ever known a pregnant woman knows that this kind of dialogue fails to reflect the mysteries of the whole situation, never mind the realities of pregnancy, miscarriage and abortion. Certainly, any family that has faced the terrible situation of weighing the continuation of a pregnancy vs. the life of the mother, wife, daughter, WOMAN, would assure all of us dear readers that there is no worse hell imaginable. Considering the state of health care for women in the United States, this type of dialogue also seems to steal the stage from the more banal and everyday questions of health for women—not just our reproductive status, but our hearts and minds. Why isn’t the leadership group of any religion focused on addressing the incredible health disparities in our country? Why is the maternal and infant mortality rate so very high here in the United States when we have the resources that we have? Another part of me wanted to cry because these men, men who have made a significant lifetime commitment to their spiritual practice and service of their communities, have missed something important—-how could time invested in this madness ever produce a more positive human experience for anyone? How is this in service of God? While I imagine that those who feel differently about the issue at hand than I do would be delighted to tell me with great passion about how this is very much so in service, it still seems a fair question—at least philosophically, if not otherwise.
How is this related to yoga? This is yoga. A very wise and brilliant student at Yoga Matrika recently communicated her revelation that what happens in her life is her practice. What happens on her yoga mat is just a trial run. What we realize through yoga practice is that just when we think we have the answer, the game shifts. Life is like being invited onto Jeopardy and practicing for months only to find yourself, with no notice, as a contestant on Wheel of Fortune! Direct or indirect, perhaps we can just use this as a public example of what happens when we use our brains to attempt to find logic in what we need to bring our higher intelligence to.
I invite you to read this article and think of a time when you struggled to make logic of a situation in which there is no logic. Thinking back on this time, see if you can now, even with hindsight, go back to the process and use your deeper intelligence to make peace. To do this, sitting on a chair with your feet firmly planted on the floor or in a comfortable seated pose on the ground gently create distance between your lowest rib and your hips. As you feel the sides of your body lengthen, bring your navel center over your pelvis. This allows your pelvis to support your enteric nervous system—-otherwise known as your gut. Now, bring your heart over your navel. This allows your heart to be supported by your instincts. Now, gentle tuck your chin towards your heart so that your neck lengthens and you relax your facial muscles. This allows your brain to be supported by your intuition and your heart. Watch your breath for a few moments and feel the peace that comes from equanimity. Even if it is just for a moment. Isn’t it a relief to take the world off your shoulders? Now, breathe this sense of peace and calm to everyone in the world. Let us all heal and put our energy into work that benefits the health and wellness of all living things.
Catholic Bishops Clarify Abortion Definitions in Light of Ariz. Case
June 28, 2010 — The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops‘ Committee on Doctrine released a statement last week clarifying how the church classifies direct abortions and indirect abortions, the Arizona Republic reports.
The statement refers to a recent case in which Sister Margaret McBride, an administrator at a Catholic hospital in Arizona, was excommunicated for her role in authorizing an abortion to save a woman’s life. The statement did not review the particulars of the case or take a position on the excommunication; instead, it said USCCB wanted to clarify “confusion” about the church’s stance on abortion.
According to the Republic, the church condemns direct abortion — meant to terminate a pregnancy — but permits indirect abortion — in which fetal death is a secondary effect of another necessary procedure — in some cases, such as a hysterectomy to treat uterine cancer. “As the church has said many times, direct abortion is never permissible because a good end cannot justify an evil means,” the statement said, adding, “There are no situations in which it can be justified.”
The statement “appears to confirm” the Phoenix bishop’s classification of the Arizona case as a direct abortion, the Republic reports (Clancy, Arizona Republic, 6/25). In the case, the young mother of four was 11 weeks pregnant and had pulmonary hypertension, a rare condition in which continuing the pregnancy often jeopardizes the life of the woman. Physicians concluded that the placenta had to be removed to prevent the patient from dying (Women’s Health Policy Report, 6/9).
Posted by Sharon Rudyk, owner of Yoga Matrika http://www.yogamatrika.com/
Yoga and Hope
In the March 2010 issue of ODE Magazine, there is a thought provoking article, Great Expectations: How hope therapy can help banish mild mood disorders and boost happiness, by Catherine Ryan. Among the many things that I started to think about was the way that yoga promotes hope.
What precisely is hope? Hope is a subtle sensation and state of being, sometimes an emotion, that provides a vague sense that something other than what “is” can be possible. It provides the foundation for every change, every decision and every transition that we find ourselves on the other side of. Without hope, the capacity to love, to move, to grow or to change is stifled and the great shadow of fear and doubt can overwhelm us. Hope is sometimes confused as faith, but although these both require one another, they are quite different. In order to act on hope, one must have faith in the potentially positive outcome of one’s actions. In order to have faith, there must be a song of hope in one’s heart or the faith grows hard like the stone of dogma.
The kind of hope that provides a boost to happiness is based on the idea that change happens. Those of us who practice yoga regularly are able to experience this on our mats in every practice. As we move through asana (poses) or pranayama (breathing), it is impossible not to notice that each breath is different, each moment of holding an asana or transition between the asana creates different sensation. Some of these sensations and changes in the breath are not welcome! But, we become uniquely aware through a practice that nothing is the same. If you have not practiced yoga before, this may sound terrifying. But, if you practice regularly, you are nodding your head and perhaps even smiling as you acknowledge the profound sense of liberation that this type of awareness creates. None of us are stuck. Not only do we have the capacity to change, but change is our natural state of being.
According to the psychologists who provided the data for the ODE article, “Hope, as defined by psychologists, is the belief that you have the skills and energy to make your dreams a reality (Ryan 2010: 53).” They suggest that our current emotional state is often determined by our expectations for the future (Ryan 2010: 53). In general, the idea is that hopeful people are happier (53). If this is the case, then one of the best ways that we can cultivate happiness is to cultivate hope. Research also seems to indicate that building high expectations doesn’t set you up for a harder fall (Ryan 2010:54). In fact, high-hopers seem uniquely prepared to bounce back after a fall due to their ability to quickly evaluate a situation and make changes (54). Yoga can play a role here too. What we learn in our practice on the mat is that when we feel something “not quite right” we take a moment to breathe into it. If things don’t change, then sometimes all we need is a soft blanket under our hip, or a block under our hand and, voila!, it feels just right. What we realize is that it isn’t that we aren’t doing a pose “right” or “wrong,” but rather that a simple modification can create an “ah ha!” moment out of an “uh-oh.”
Yoga also helps us learn how to set specific and achievable goals. Apparently, for adults who do not have high-hopes, one of the first steps of hope therapy is to learn how to set a specific and achievable goal (Ryan 2010: 54). In open level yoga classes, some students can do some amazing things with balance, with their strength, with their energy and some students struggle to just sit on their mat or lie still in savasana—yet they are all doing yoga. When we first start out, we realize immediately that, while yoga shouldn’t be goal oriented, we can determine the types of goals that are and are not achievable. It would not be realistic to think that we could come into an advanced balancing pose if we struggle to maintain balance in Warrior I, but it is not unrealistic to think that we can become more aware of our balance and the position of our feet in relationship to the earth. We also find that great happiness and the complete benefit of the practice is available to us no matter what the poses look like. After class, the person who could do a handstand in the middle of the room—feels great. The person who did child’s pose for most of the class—feels great. A regular yoga practice shows us that there is great benefit in simply being present. If that isn’t hope, then I don’t know what is.
REFERENCES
Ryan, Catherine
Great Expectations: How hope therapy can help banish mild mood disorders and boost happiness. IN Ode Magazine, March 2010, pages 53-54.
Written and posted by Sharon Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Yoga Works
I’m just about as committed, or perhaps even MORE committed, to the “Why?” as anyone. I think it’s a rather good question to be asked about anything from WHY is the Nobel peace prize winner suggesting that we increase our war activities to WHY do Pittsburghers call sprinkles, “jimmies”. Or, the yoga owner gasps, WHY should anyone do yoga? Just as committed as I am to the WHY, I’m simply frustrated at the infinite number of things that I can’t seem to comprehend or the number of WHY questions that I can’t get a satisfactory answer to. Will someone just give me the satisfaction of a BECAUSE… every once in a while?
If there is one thing that I know to be true and that is that YOGA WORKS. I mean, it works for EVERYONE—children, moms, men, women, older people, teens, injured and sick, athletic and healthy, flexible, idiots and genius alike (generally subjective measurements anyway!)—–yoga works in all cases and without exception. Why? I have no idea! I’m relatively convinced that any answer is only the beginning of an answer or even a fraction of the answer. I don’t care if you got this answer by measuring brain activity, hormone levels, blood chemicals, stress level, decrease in headaches, reported relationship satisfaction, increased fertility, etc. However you get your answer to the why of yoga, it’s only part of the story. The most terrifying thing about this kind of inquiry is that I wonder how many questions I have asked and found an answer to that I really only know the fraction of—maybe WHY just isn’t the right question and every BECAUSE is merely a PERHAPS in disguise?
I can think of two reasons why yoga decreases stress, makes us feel stronger and lighter and gives us energy and a feeling of bliss and joy:
1) We are moving in the most honest of ways and using our body to express, explore and respond to the environment around us instead of privileging the BRAIN and simply dragging the body around as a useful, but mostly frustrating appendage. So many people tell me that they can’t do yoga because they aren’t flexible or because they aren’t “the type.” If yoga was about touching your toes, then I can assure you gentle reader that 20 million Americans wouldn’t be doing yoga! And, I might ask, who is the yoga type and how do you know it doesn’t apply to you if you never try? As you are reading this, I happen to know that you are a live human and you have a body. This being the case, you are, in fact, just the right “type” for yoga. All you need is to be breathing and have a body and yoga will work for you!
2) Yoga is a vacation. When you practice yoga, you lighten your load—you slow down the breath, you take off your shoes and socks, you notice sensations in your body and you shut up. I don’t mean that you just stop talking. I mean that you stop talking, people stop talking to you and you can finally hear yourself think. For beginners, this is a terrifying moment because when you hear yourself think for the first time you can be overwhelmed to discover just how many thoughts you are having every minute or even every second. This flood of thoughts, ideas, feelings, desires, stories and much more just flood over you and once you become aware of this you start to say, “THINKING” and return your awareness to your breath. Ahhh—now isn’t that delightful? It’s not something you can say to your boss–right? Boss sticks her head in your cubicle and starts talking really fast about some immediate emergency double secret deadline and you can’t just say, “THINKING” and turn away! But in yoga, you even get a vacation from yourself and all the trappings and trimmings you have determined as elements of that self. You lighten your load by slowing down, removing obstacles to calm and getting out of your own way. You CAN say to yourself, “THINKING.”
So try a yoga class and move your body and breathe and, well, get out of your own way!
Posted by Sharon Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika (http://www.yogamatrika.com/) and Prenatal Yoga Pittsburgh (http://www.prenatalyogapittsburgh.com) in Point Breeze, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217.
I’d like to give an appropriate reference to Pema Chodron, a most wonderful writer and teacher who suggests the concept of saying “Thinking” to yourself during meditation when you start to lose your focus or awareness. My personal favorite Pema Chodron title is, “The Wisdom of No Escape,” but you can try any title for excellent meditation information and practical advice and instruction.
Yoga for the Wind
Wasn’t that wind storm beautiful? Perhaps, if you were one of the Pittsburgher’s whose car was crushed by a falling tree you might not be able to appreciate the beauty of it just yet, but for the rest of us it was a powerful, sensual and dynamic experience. No rain, lightning, hail. Just wind blowing over 35 miles per hour for over four hours in a row with gusts up to 60 miles per hour thrown in for gusto.
Yoga has many powerful connections with wind. First, and perhaps the most obvious, is the wind of breath. We take the wind of breath in through our nose or mouth and it fuels our bodies with oxygen. Depending on our breathing pattern we can communicate various messages to our brain through our central nervous system. As the breath moves through our bodies we use the internal architecture and organs of the body to accept the winds, move them to the available spaces and take the excess to appropriate avenues of escape. Another, somewhat less obvious connection to yoga(unless you have a ‘thing’ for potty humor or happen to be living with a 3rd grader), are the winds of our digestive system. There’s even a pose called “wind relieving posture” which has been known to massage some winds from a few student’s bellies. While the sound of the escape of these winds through burps and farts (yes, farts are part of yoga too) may cause some embarassment to the yogi, their release creates space and ease in the digestive system.
Finally, we have the winds of the internal energy of the body. Have you ever been really angry? (If the answer is no, then I’m SUPER excited and honored to have you, the Dalai Lama reading my blog!) Your anger might have risen from your belly your heart and you felt the need to amplify your voice to allow the energy of this angry wind escape through your mouth on the vehicle of your words. Illness and health is viewed through many healing traditions as management of the internal winds of the body.
So, today, allow wind to be a part of your yoga. Try inhaling and exhaling through your nose as you allow your shoulders to drop away from your ears. Listen to the sound of your breath. Close your eyes for a moment and look at your internal weather system. Belly full of wind? Heart full of wind? Have all the winds become so sedate that you can’t fly your soul kite today? Whatever your wind status, just spending a few moments to breathe and look at your internal weather might bring you insight and relief. And, if a tree did fall on your car last night, it will give you something to do as you call your insurance company and get placed on eternal hold.