Tag: suffering

Attitude of Gratitude? Not so much.

November 23, 2016
Posted by Sharon

While we all know that cultivating an attitude of gratitude is a part of living our most joyful life, how can we authentically do this when we are less than grateful?  Feeling ashamed or guilty about the “real” nature of our feelings, or pretending to be thankful for what we would have very much preferred to say “NO thank you” to in our lives gets in the way of happiness and creativity.  What if your heart is broken?  What if you are in terrible pain without relief in sight?  What if you have received terrifying news that has changed your life in an even more awful way?  Even with all the joyful self-help gurus and happy, shiny, advanced yogi specialists beaming at you from their glossy magazines promising peace and abundance for all your expressions of gratitude, and even as much as you wish to crawl into their tie-dyed yoga pants and bask in the bliss of all that they proclaim and stand for, the truth is that when your life is going to Hades in a hand basket…….well, no matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.

But, if you are reading this, you DO have something to be grateful for.  This something does not, in any way, diminish however awful things are for you right now.  As the Buddha taught us, suffering is a part of the human existence.  We suffer because we desire things to be anything other than what they are right now.  We suffer because we are afraid, when things are wonderful, that we will lose that fabulous feeling.  Therefore, we know that our suffering can exist at the same time as our one thing that we always have to be grateful for.  What is this one thing that is ever-present?  Breath.  Yes, if you are reading this or even aware enough to listen to someone else who can read it to you, then you have this one thing that you can be grateful for in this moment.

You don’t have to pretend that all the suffering isn’t there.  Well, at least, don’t pretend on my account!  I don’t even own a single pair of tie-dyed yoga pants for you to covet or crawl into. (Although, if anyone reading this is inclined, I would absolutely LOVE a pair!)  I’m suggesting that there is a way to cultivate gratitude even when all hope is lost.  The beauty of observing the breath and being genuinely thankful that it is with you, of you, and through you, is that you create a little hope and space where there just didn’t seem like any could be found or made.  No, all your problems aren’t solved.  But, the subtle shift may be just the little miracle you need.  If not, you were taking those breaths anyway and so nothing gets lost through your effort.

I was recently reading a book about the subtle body by Tias Little.  I randomly opened it to a page with a breathing exercise that described the lungs as an upside down tree with the branches (lung tissue) towards the earth and the roots in the upper palate/roof of the mouth. I love this visualization because, in Chinese subtle body mapping, the color of the liver energy is green.  In Hatha yoga chakras, green is the color of the heart-chakra.  Therefore, when we breathe in, we can grow green leaves and fill the branches of our respiratory tree making it more and more lush with each in-breath.  As you exhale, you can feel those roots reach towards the crown of your head and pull up on the roof of your mouth.  There is actually a pleasure center of the brain that is located right above the upper palate of the mouth.  When you exhale, the palate lifts and stimulates this center.  Thinking about this tree helped me stay focused on the breath in a very powerful way.  When I am very upset, using a strong visual tool like this helps me stay present with the breath.  Otherwise, my mind tends to wander and feed my sadness, fear, or pain.  Sure, when times are calm and good we can be aware of the in-breath, breathing in, and aware of the out-breath, breathing out. But, in times of chaos and confusion, using visualization can mean the difference between a nourishing and a frustrating practice.

Please do not feel that accessing these few moments of peace require that you deny the reality of your sufferings.  Feel all your feelings, know what is true for you, and be authentic in your expression and communication!  All the while, know that you can also create a sanctuary of peace and beauty through the practice of breath awareness.  Although the in and out nature of the breath happens without your explicit effort, you can still find some gratitude in the presence of breath.  How lovely to feel and hear the breath coming in!  How amazing to be able to feel the release of the breath and all that is no longer needed!  It is happening right now.

Posted by Sharon Fennimore, a yogini, teacher, and writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Find out more here.

 

 

I Am The Door

May 18, 2016
Posted by Sharon

Here are two common scenarios for me:

Scenario One: A Friend or Client is Stuck

This happens to me a lot and I guess it is an “occupational hazard” of sorts, but people come to tell me their stories when they feel stuck.  Many of my clients and students have tried everything, gone to every doctor, had all the tests, done all the treatments and they still don’t have the results they desired or the well-being that they were hoping for. I have friends that tell me about their stuck feelings in jobs, work relationships, personal relationships and just how they feel in their lives at this moment.  In many cases, though not all, a path to freedom seems clear to me, the observer.  When I first started this work, I was so delighted when I saw such a clear path because I assumed that if I could communicate it, then my clients could folllow my vision and get free fast.  But, what I immediately realized is that the clear path has always been present for my friend or client and for some reason, they aren’t going to walk down it.  Each of us has to keep putting one foot in front of the other and find that next step on our own.  In many ways, this has been my greatest challenge as an integrative health coach—-learning to walk beside my client offering insight and clarity, but not getting so attached to the “results”.

Scenario Two: I Am Stuck

Oh yes, I get stuck in the ditch of life myself quite often.  And, when I am down there in the darkness of the ditch, all I want is for someone to yank me out and say, “Girl, THIS is what you have to do right now.”  I want someone to provide me with direction, the next step, the right thing to do to get out of the ditch and back on level ground.  Except, just as in the case with my clients and friends, I also know that I would be unlikely to just accept and follow that advice, even if some magical force did yank me out of the ditch and tell me what to do.  It’s likely that I’m down there in the ditch with a shiny and solid ladder right in front of my face.  Why am I not climbing the ladder?  I don’t know.  Why aren’t you climbing the ladder in front of you?  You don’t know.

I AM THE DOOR

We don’t climb the ladder for a lot of reasons, but it is likely because of a spiritual issue, a karmic matter or a soul condition.  I don’t like to talk like this because we all want scientifically proven and documented treatments, cures and methods.  I don’t like to talk like this because as much as I am confident that it is true, I don’t actually know what it means.  All I know is that if you are down in a ditch, that there is a ladder in front of you and you aren’t climbing it because divine order wants you to sit down there a little longer.  Who knows “why”?  Maybe Divine Order wants you to climb up that ladder at the precise moment that you would meet someone walking along who will change your life in a profound way?  Maybe you need to be a certain age or have a certain amount of experience before you can accept what is at the top of that ladder?  It’s absolutely maddening to be in relationship with someone who isn’t climbing their ladder.  You know the friend I’m talking about, the friend who does nothing, day in and day out, but complain about their awful job, but they haven’t even dusted off the old resume to even consider a new job search.  Or, whatever it is…….joyless lovers, sullen sisters, tempestuous rascals….ditch dwellers!  All of them!

IMG_6947That’s why I can’t shout enough about how much I love, adore, admire and am inspired by these church doors in Philadelphia!  The ones that say, as if these red doors weren’t flipping obvious enough even to the legally blind, I AM THE DOOR.  Just in case you were wondering how to get in there, the path to God, to figuring out your relationship with the Divine with a capital “D”, you FOOL with a capital “F”—-I AM THE DOOR.  Because, this is the nature of the human condition.  The human condition is that all that we need is right in IMG_6946front of us, but we need to walk through the door, we need to take action.

The key though is not to think that the fact that the door is obvious makes it “easy” to walk through it.  If we aren’t ready, we can walk in and out of the doors as much as we like, but we will still feel stuck.  They key is being open to inspiration, transformation and the energetic shift required to open to joy.  This is the radical reason why we don’t do anything that is good for us.  I tell people I’m a yoga teacher and they generally have one of three responses:

  1. Oh, I’m not flexible.  I can’t even touch my toes!  I can’t do yoga.
  2. Oh, yoga……I NEED yoga.  I should do yoga.  Really, I am supposed to do yoga.
  3. I love yoga.  I take yoga classes all the time.

Yoga IS a transformative practice.  For the record, you don’t need to be flexible and touching your toes is neither a measurement of general flexibility nor relevant to the practice of yoga.  But, the second response is interesting because it means to me that the person talking knows on some level that practicing yoga would be transformative for them, but they don’t do it.  They are choosing not to walk through the door.  The unlocked door just sits there, closed in the cobwebs of their conciousness, but they aren’t going to approach it and open the door.  They don’t want to know.  “Knowing” doesn’t solve any problems and it might just create additional ones.  Yes, doing yoga can cause a lot of problems.  Walking through the door, coming up on the ladder—it’s messy, ugly and potentially going to rock the quiet little rowboat of your life.

My favorite is when people tell me that they “can’t meditate” because as soon as they sit down their mind starts to race.  News flash!  You know what this means?  It means that your mind is CONSTANTLY racing and you are just letting the distractions of life keep you from this fact.  Your mind didn’t start racing when you sat down, it’s just that you finally took a moment to observe your mind.  That racing mind of yours is causing all kinds of problems for you under the surface.  And, I’d venture a guess that it is causing all kinds of problems for you in your relationships, at work, with your diet and with your satisfaction with life.  You are eating when you aren’t hungry, making agreements you don’t agree to, buying things you don’t really want or need, signing gym contracts when you’ll never see the inside of that locker room, going on that second date with that guy who had too many drinks on your first date but you are really hoping it isn’t a problem and yet you know that it IS a problem…………..Yes, I’m suggesting that you sit there all uncomfortable with your mind racing and your stomach in knots and your shoulders all tied up and tense around your ears and your breath shallow and unsatisfying in your chest.  Just sit there and suffer.  Because that suffering is your door.  You can’t medicate it, avoid it, distract yourself from it, circumambulate it—all you can do is be with it.  Go through it.  See it.  It’s just as obvious as the fact that the red door is the door, yet that church leadership knows that they need to make it plain and simple regardless of how obvious it is.

I AM THE DOOR.

Written by Sharon Fennimore, a rogue anthropologist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I love to travel, take walks and seek inspiration in my environment.  When I find something interesting, I share it on my blog and Facebook page: Pilgrimage Pittsburgh.

Everything Changes

April 16, 2016
Posted by Sharon

[I said to Suzuki Roshi,] “I could listen to you for a thousand years and still not get it.  Could you just please put it in a nutshell?  Can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase?”…He was not a man you could pin down, and he didn’t like to give his students something definite to cling to. He had often said not to have “some idea” of what Buddhism was.  But Suzuki did answer.  He looked at me and said, “Everything changes.”

~David Chadwick

For the past 24-hours, here in Pittsburgh we have been bathed in the light of the sun through clear blue skies. I feel the sun in the fluids of my body and, all of a sudden, my dreams seem possible.  When you live in a place that offers shades of gray (and not in the exciting way) for most days of the year, the light of the sun brings profound shifts in conciousness.  This shift is welcomed because it is warm, light and inspiring.  As much as this change in season from cold and dark to warm and light is welcomed, the truth is that at the end of last summer I welcomed the cooler air.  The abundance of heat had become stifling and I desired a shift towards cooler breezes and an internal retreat.  Therefore, it is neither cool or warm that is desired in and of itself, but rather the energetic shifts that come with those changes.

It is curious to me that I can see how these shifts in temperature and light and energies related to the seasons are important to my well-being, creativity and mind-body, but I hold on so tightly to so many things.  I worry about losing things.  I am terrified to lose people, either through death or natural shifts in relationships of all kinds.  My dog is very old.  She is such a sweet and loving soul and sometimes I feel my heart breaking just a little, tiny bit, even while she is still alive and well because I know this can’t go on forever.  My clients are terrified by global warming, their mortality, their mental and physical health concerns.  I feel my own suffering and that of others so deeply.  All of these sufferings and fears are rooted in my inability to embody the wisdom presented by Suzuki Roshi, “everything changes”.  When things are “good”, I am already suffering because I know that they will change and I wish I could hold onto that “good”.  When things are “bad”, I forget that they won’t walways be that way and I identify with that darkness as if it will go on forever.

A few days ago, I was standing outside of a building and a woman appeared who was searching for a medical office, but it seemed like she was at the wrong address.  I had my phone with me and offered to use Google maps to search for the address and see where it was in relationship to where we were and as I searched, she told me a little bit about her story.  You see, she was going to have her second open heart surgery in the next week and she needed to see a dentist before the surgery.  Somehow, she used to have dental insurance, but her health plan was switched without her knowing it and she no longer had insurance.  She was rushing around and trying to get the pre-surgical care she needed and she was upset and scared.  On top of her concerns about her health and having to recover from having her “chest cut open again”, she didn’t know how she was going to pay for the dentist and now she couldn’t even find the dentist that had agreed to see her without insurance. This is not healing.  This woman needed to be cared for, nourished and soothed.  I wanted to sit with her in a calm and beautiful place and help her visualize a healing surgery followed by an uncomplicated recovery.  I wanted to sit with her around lush greenery and nature so that the color of the heart chakra, green, was surrounding her and she could breathe it in. I didn’t want her to worry about the dentist or how she would pay for it or the pain.  It’s so easy for us to become completely absorbed by our own story and our own suffering that we forget that everyone is also experiencing these cycles of suffering.  Everyone.  No matter how much money you have, resources, education, or fancy shoes that match your suits……..it simply doesn’t prevent change.

My students know that I have been working with a gatha (meditative poem) by Thich Nhat Hanh for the past year and I believe it is the perfect way to work with this energy of suffering around change or to release attachment to change that is perceived as beneficial.  This poem brings a sense of equanimity.

Breathing in, I calm my body.  Breathing out, I smile.  Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

In his book of guided meditations, The Blooming of a Lotus (1993), Thich Nhat Hanh provides this same gatha with breathing instructions for each part of the poem:

  1. Breathing in, I calm my body.
    Breathing out, I smile.
  2. Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment.
    Breathing out, I know this is a wonderful moment.

In short:

Breathing in: CALM

Breathing out: SMILE

Breathing in: PRESENT MOMENT

Breathing out: WONDERFUL MOMENT

I hope you will find this simple poem and breathing practice as helpful as I do in bringing peace and equanimity into this moment regardless of our circumstances.  It is in this state of equanimity that we can also be compassionate to all other living beings as they navigate their changes.

Written by Sharon Fennimore, a yoga and meditation instructor and women’s health coach based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Please join my online community MAKE ROOM and learn how to meditate for clarity and peace. I’d so very much be delighted to have you join us!

Yoga for Getting Through a Rough Patch

July 14, 2015
Posted by Sharon
“So there he is at last.  Man on the moon.  The poor magnificent bungler!  He can’t even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom!  There he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.” ~Russell (Wayne) Baker

 

When I clipped this cartoon from the New Yorker, I didn’t know what a rough patch really was.  I’d had some days that were more difficult than others.  I almost failed Macro Economics (really) and that felt pretty awful.  But now, I don’t just chuckle at this, I guffaw from some deep and injured and yet mightily resilient place from deep inside.  It’s the place where the magic of yoga really touches.

How do we make peace with the fact of the Four Noble Truths that tell us that our lot as humans in life is to suffer—victims of desire and want and dissatisfaction—and the idea that our true nature is joy and happiness?  Philosophically, it is an interesting problem.  On the ground, it can be a pretty miserable conundrum.  As I am emerging from what I would like to fondly refer to as a three-year “rough patch”, I see that the play of shadow and light has always been at work.  Just as Leo Tolstoy writes in Anna Karenina, “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”  What I know now is that the shadows can dominate for long periods of time, but the light lingers even in those darkest places.

Yoga is for humans.  Sometimes, in a time of shadows, yoga is the thread that keeps us connected to the small rays of light that can peek up through the narrow slats of wood in the kitchen floor, to some feeling in our toes, to memories or dreams or even just a remembering of a time when imagination was possible.  When our breath is caught in some invisible net at the base of our throat and the breathing diaphragm feels permanently fixed in space, then we can explore the corners of our nostrils and the sensation of breath on the lips, however light.  That’s yoga.  When our back is in knots and our head pounds, we can sip water and feel that wash over our tongue and enjoy the cool sensation.  That’s yoga.  Then, when the shadows dance to the corners and the light fills our subtle spaces again, and it will, then our yoga is still with us.

So, if it turns out that your life is a rough patch, find something precious and small that you can sense and breathe into that moment.  You never know what will tip the scales.

Practice for Shadow Dwelling

Are you in a rough patch?  Please try this practice.  It is unlikely to solve your problems, but it can shift your awareness in this moment so that you can experience a brief peace and clarity of mind.

#1: Fill a glass (and please do use glass if it is available) with fresh water

#2: Have a seat in a chair and place both of your feet on the ground.

#3: Take five breaths as slowly and deeply as possible.  If you feel tight in your chest or throat, like you can’t take a deep breath, then focus on taking as long as possible to exhale.

#4: Drink the glass of water and visualize the water washing your cells of stress and tension.  Feel connected to the oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of the world and all the living beings that rely on these waters.

Out of Beer?

November 21, 2012
Posted by Sharon
Leave a comment

Benjamin Franklin said that beer was proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.  But, what happens when you run out of beer?

Matthieu Ricard offers some ideas about happiness in this short talk.  Enjoy!

The McRib is Back

November 3, 2010
Posted by Sharon
Leave a comment

Nestled in between some of the most idiotic political advertisements I have ever seen was a clean and simple advertising campaign from the Mc family of restaurants announcing the “great news” that the McRib was back.  Seriously?  Did anyone miss the McRib?  Obviously, someone did.

For me, the idiotic campaigns of both politicians and this questionably edible treat are both a clear sign that it is time for everyone to do more yoga.  Doing yoga provides us with a clear connection to our deepest intelligence and relieves us of fear and anxiety about the future.  Over time, grounding ourselves in the present moment, with a deep connection to what is most true for ourselves and to our universal nature through breath and mindful movement prevents us from attachment to the forms of suffering that are implicated in these advertisements.

These advertisements indicate to me that these politicians and corporations are appealing to an un-centered population, one that is filled with desires, angers and fears that they can not even name.  Or, perhaps, even more dangerous, they have placed a false name on these deep emotions.  If you can point the finger at a “baby-killer” it releases you from being forced to see the “baby-killer” in yourself.  Of course, I do not mean this literally, but figuratively, placing blame of any kind on someone else or something else is a form of denial of the ways that each and every one of us suffer at the hands of our own desires, judgments and violence. 

Yoga does not have to mean putting on a pair of stretch pants and sitting on a plastic mat in some peaceful room.  It’s a great place to start, but maybe your starting point needs to be somewhere different.   Patanjali’s yoga sutras define yoga as the calming of the mental movements of the mind (1.2 yogas citta-vrtti-nirodhah).  No special clothing or props are mentioned.  What do you do that calms the mental movements of your mind?  Is it your work, spending time with your children, your volunteer work, through creativity, playing music, swimming/running/hiking, your prayer, your community work?  Whatever it is that brings you to a place that is in this moment is your yoga.  You probably already do a lot of yoga and just don’t know it!

Yoga brings you in touch with the present moment.  This moment is real.  Fear, blame, anxiety, desire and everything else implied by these advertising campaigns are all about some different moment—-either a moment from the past that you can’t get back or a moment in the future that is just conjecture.  The more you can be present in the reality of this very moment, the less you are at the mercy of campaigns that appeal to the worst, most suffering and fearful place in yourself.

If yoga isn’t for you, I still have some advice that may be of great import now that the McRib is back: Stay away from processed meat in the shape of bones.  In the words of Hans and Frans, listen to me now and hear me later, there just has to be something better to eat.  Really.

This entry was written by Sharon Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  www.yogamatrika.com

Yoga and Hope

May 23, 2010
Posted by Sharon
Leave a comment

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.