Leaning Into Curiosity In These Uncertain Times

This month my theme is fear, and while I didn’t intend to talk about it from the angle of COVID19 and the far reaching effects of what’s going on in our world right now, sometimes life throws you curve balls, and you change tactics. If I’m going to be totally honest, since we’re talking about fear, I’ll make a “confession”: curve balls are one of my biggest fears. (It’s probably obvious, but I’m talking about my fear of figurative curve balls here, not the baseball variety). I don’t like uncertainty. I’m a type A planner. I run a travel planning company, so I’ve literally made a living of planning. I have a Master’s in Marketing. Marketers plan stuff out. It’s also my general personality. I’m the type of person that likes to always know the next steps, and someone who always likes to be planning the next thing. When it boils down to it, I’m terrified of a lack of control.

I think this is the case for a lot of people, but for me, much of it comes from my chronic illnesses. I have a rapid mood cycling disorder called rapid cycling cyclothymia, which means that my moods can cycle between depression, hypomania, and “regular mood” (i.e. neither of the formers) as infrequently as every week or two, or as frequently as every few hours. When you literally feel like you have no idea what your brain is going to do in the next few hours and how it’s going to throw off your emotions, your attention span, your feelings about yourself (depression is not kind to self esteem, self worth, self confidence), it can be scary. In addition, I suffer from other chronic illnesses such as Migraine, arthritis, and GI issues that can flare up at any time. When your internal world, including your brain, often feel so uncertain and outside of your control, it can make that need for control of external circumstances feel even more crucial.

And yet right now, I am having to face that lack of control head on. (To be clear, we can’t actually ever control things outside of ourselves, especially other people, but often it feels like we at least have a little say in how things in our life work). Things have been changing daily, often hourly, and we’re having to acknowledge that we don’t know what lies ahead. Right now, things might be closed for two weeks. But that could change. It could be double that. It could be months. We don’t know. While I don’t currently work full time in either travel planning or yoga, these are both parts of my life and my livelihood. And yet I’m having to adjust. I cannot in good conscience encourage my clients to make new travel plans right now (I do almost exclusively overseas travel, much of it to Europe, so that’s more or less at a halt). I have cancelled my weekly Benefit Yoga Class for the next couple of weeks, because the health and safety of my participants and their loved ones (and my loved ones) is more important than the money I make from that, of course. And yet obviously, all of this affects my income, and our household income, and I have to adjust there. And we have no real idea how the course of things will go, how long these cancellations and changes to life and livelihood will last, or what the next change will be.

And I’ll be honest, all of this uncertainty is anxiety inducing. I’m not good with constant change, with not knowing how things will be one day to the next. My already anxious and cycling brain does not like it one bit. And of course, I’m controlling what I can by cancelling the classes and events I have the power to cancel, staying home unless necessary, finding other ways to connect with the people I care about. But I cannot control it all. So instead I’m leaning in to curiosity where I can. I’m curious to see how we’re able to be creative at my day job to get things done while working from home. It’s requiring lots of teamwork, and that’s actually really cool - different departments pulling together to make this all happen. In my yoga work, I’m exploring the idea of doing photo series of poses and flows that people can put together to create their own practice at home. I’m even considering videos, which truthfully terrifies me. But it’s forcing me to step out of my comfort zone and explore these options to help my students to develop a home practice, and to maybe help others to get some needed movement and stress relief/mindfulness. I’m learning, ever so slowly, to take things a day or two at a time. To have my main plan, and then some backup options in case the main plan doesn’t work out (even backup plans are tough for me, as I’m usually so set on my main plan). And I’m learning to acknowledge that even the back up to the back up plan may have to go out the window and I may end up in uncharted territory.

Is it my ideal? Not at all. Primarily because a global pandemic that puts people’s lives at risk is obviously never something I’d want, no matter how many lessons it teaches me. But I am learning a lot about myself in this. I’m learning what I, and so many others, are capable of (way more than we often think). So little by little, I’m being curious where I can, working to lean into the uncertainty instead of bristle against it and produce even further anxiety. It is the ultimate practice in the yama of Aparigraha, or letting go.

Letting Go of the Negative Stories We Tell Ourselves

Looking ahead (Atlas Mountains outside of Marrakech, Morocco).

For the last blog in my series on letting go, I wanted to write about the “letting go” that I think can potentially be the trickiest of all (or at least of the topics discussed in this series). It encompasses a bit of everything I’ve posted about this month, and it could honestly be a series of blogs on its own, in my opinion. As with each of these topics, it can be applied both on and off the mat. That topic is Letting Go Of The Negative Stories We Tell Ourselves. 

In yoga, these stories may surround our abilities, our flexibility, our body, our fears or worries (i.e. that there’s no way we could even attempt a pose because what if we fall/can’t do it/etc). And certainly, we need to listen to our bodies, to our intuition. We don’t *have* to try any particular pose. There’s no reason we need to reach our toes in a seated fold, or balance perfectly in tree, or anything like that. But so often, it’s not simply that we’re accepting where we are in the moment and saying “Today, that pose isn’t going to serve me because ...I have an injury, I need something more restorative, it simply doesn’t feel right in my body at the moment,” etc. Instead, we tell ourselves things like “I’ll never be able to do that”. “I’m not flexible enough, strong enough, don’t have good enough balance.”  We have so many stories about who we are and aren’t, what we can and can’t do, that we put ourselves at a disadvantage even if we do attempt it. Instead of going in with the idea of “let me give this a go and see how it works,'' we're going in with the idea that we’re going to be “bad” at it (in quotes intentionally, since there is no bad in a pose). Or maybe it’s that we don’t go to a class at all. Maybe you’d like to try yoga, or to try a type of yoga, but you tell yourself you can’t do it, that you’ll embarrass yourself, that it’s too hard, or whatever it is, and you stop yourself before you even get in the door. A few weeks back in a post about My Yoga Story, I wrote about how I told myself for months, or maybe years, that I wouldn’t be able to do yoga because I wouldn’t be able to be in class and not talk for a whole hour (seriously!).  Whatever the story is, that’s all it is - a story. It’s not a fact. Even if you’ve tried that form of yoga or that class or that pose before, the only facts are that you had a particular experience on that particular day at that particular time. Everything interpreted and extrapolated from that is just a story. And if you’ve ever listened to a friend or family member or coworker tell a story that gets funnier/scarier/more phenomenal with each telling, you know that stories can change. 

It’s much the same way in day to day life. We tell ourselves stories. About our career/job. About our relationships. About our skills and abilities. About what we are “good” and “bad” at, about our strengths and weaknesses. And most notably, about what all of these say about us as human beings. We interpret information, form stories about ourselves, and call those stories facts. Or maybe someone else has interpreted the information and told a story and called it a fact, and they’re convincing enough, or do this often enough, that we begin to believe them. And eventually, we are told or tell ourselves these stories enough that they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just as we may not try a pose in class because we’re convinced we’ll never be able to do it, and then without practice, we struggle to do the pose, the same happens in life. For example, despite being a yoga and barre and group fitness instructor, public speaking is not my favorite. I’ve always said I’m no good at it.  So I generally haven’t volunteered for things that involve public speaking. Which means I’m never going to be more comfortable with public speaking (that’s not teaching a class), and I’m always going to feel like I’m bad at public speaking. And truth is, it may be that I’m never going to be a great public speaker - we all have different skills and preferences, and I truly am an introvert that feels better behind the screen than in front of a crowd unless I’m teaching some sort of a yoga/workout class. But if I keep telling myself the story that I’m never going to be a good public speaker, chances are, I'm never going to do anything to change that perception because I’m too worried I will be bad at it, and I’ll always feel uncomfortable speaking in public. 

And of course, we are perfectly within our rights as human beings to not do something that we don’t prefer. If you just plain out don’t enjoy yoga or running or public speaking or whatever it is, unless for some reason you’re required to do it, you don’t need to force yourself to. Just like, if you really don’t want to apply for a job because it doesn’t sound like something you’d enjoy, then don’t do it.  But if you aren’t doing something, be it a yoga pose or a life thing or a career thing, because you’re worried about somehow not being enough/bad at it/etc, I’d ask you to pause before committing to not doing it. Ask yourself if your reasons are actual facts or preferences, or if they’re based off of a negative story that you’re telling yourself. Because often it’s holding on to these negative stories, not actual fact or ability, that’s holding us back. 

Letting Go of the "Full Expression of the Pose" - In Yoga and Life

Pavritta Konasa - I have no delusions of being able to grab my foot with my top hand, and that’s completely OK. This is my “full expression” of the pose at the moment.

In yoga, you’ll often hear the phrase “full expression of the pose”. It’s a phrase that I’ve both caught myself saying, probably because I’ve heard it so often that it sometimes slips out, and also a phrase I don’t love and try to correct when I accidentally say it. The “full expression” basically means “how the pose looks if every arm/leg/foot/hand/body part” is where yoga guidelines, or at least that particular yoga type, indicates it would be. (Very rough translation of the phrase, by the way). And I get that there have to be some guidelines that indicate what a pose ideally looks like, as it gives a starting point, helps us to work into proper alignment, and provides us with an image of what we’re generally trying to make our bodies do. Without this, it would virtually be a game of Simon says, telling people where to put this arm and that leg, which obviously is not what we’re aiming for in teaching yoga. But we also talk often in yoga about meeting yourself where you are. About there being no right way to be a yogi, about it being a process, about it being for everybody and every BODY.  So I don’t love the idea of saying “be fine with wherever you are right now” and then following it up with “and here’s how it should ideally look”. (Note: obviously if someone is doing something unsafe, that’s a different story, as safety has to be a priority). 

So with October’s theme of letting go, I’m inviting you to let go of this idea of the “full expression of the pose” as we’ve traditionally used it in yoga. Instead of thinking of the full expression of the pose as this ideal version of a pose where everything is perfectly aligned, what if we think of it as “OUR full expression of the pose” at this moment. Like for me, right now my full expression of Pavritta Konasana (revolved wide legged forward bend) pictured above, does not involve my top hand reaching anywhere near my flexed foot. Sure, I could maybe reach closer to my foot if I contorted my body and focused on hand to foot at all costs, but it would involve me crunching my ribs/belly/everything else, instead of opening up the chest and side body. I’d be missing the intention of the pose, the reason we do this particular asana in the first place. So, at least for the time being, the version pictured above is my full expression of the pose. And in fact, if I allow the “full expression as it is to me” to be a bit of a fluid or moving target, it helps keep me more motivated to continue to work in the pose. Instead of trying to get to some ideal, I’m working on small adjustments in my body that, over time, might help me feel more comfortable in the pose and adjust as needed to my body and what serves me best on any given day. It allows me to truly meet myself where I am, instead of “meeting myself where I am but really aiming for xyz.”

And we don’t just do this in yoga; we do it in life. A perfect example is the novel I published this past summer. It’s my first novel, and I’m incredibly proud. Still, at first, whenever anyone said something like “Wow you published a novel!” I would reply with a joke like, “Well,  I mean, it’s self-published, so, not like they could turn me down really….”. Basically, I concluded that I wasn’t the “fullest expression of a published author” because of the publishing route I’d taken. And in doing so, it dismissed all the work and creativity and effort I put into it. It dismissed the fact that I have a novel on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, that I have a paperback with my name on it that I can hold in my hands, that numerous friends and family ordered and read and enjoyed, simply because I didn’t view it as the “fullest expression” of being the author of a published novel. But several months into having my book out in the world, I’ve let go of this idea.  Now, when people ask me who my publisher is, I give the name of the company I used to self-publish. If they ask further details, I tell them about it, and I’m happy to tell them it’s a self-publishing company, not because I’m diminishing my accomplishment, but because I am a big supporter of both the company and the self-publishing industry, because I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I want to share with others that it’s not one size fits all, that there’s not one “fullest expression” of being a published author, and to perhaps encourage them, if they’re thinking about publishing their work, to consider all “expressions of the pose”, as it were. 

And so, whether it's an actual yoga pose, or an area in your life where you diminish your accomplishments because you feel it doesn’t meet the ideal criteria, I encourage you to let go of that “fullest expression of the pose”. I encourage you, instead, to focus on what feels good about what you’re doing, where you feel accomplished in it. And of course it’s great to have goals that you work towards, both in yoga and in life. But they should be goals that you want to work towards because you want to work towards them - not because someone else has decided that it’s the ideal point for you to get to, or that you’re not “fully there” if you don’t meet those expectations.