Education Acceleration

Time is the best teacher, although it kills the students.

~ anonymous quote from a web page of yoga jokes

I found this quote today as I was googling around.  It reminds me of something my teacher Rod Stryker says to inspire his students to practice: “By the time you have finally gained some wisdom and peace of mind, it’s not long before you’re back in diapers.”  It’s a grim contemplation.  Time may eventually wear away our delusions, but it also wears down our body in the process.  If life is a classroom, it’s like waiting to get your dissertation right before your retire.

So perhaps time is the most inevitable teacher, but not the ideal one.  Wouldn’t it be nice to speed up the learning process, rather than wait for the next life lesson to smack us in the face?  Wouldn’t it be nice to preemptively give up our nonproductive habits, rather than wait for them to create major problems?

This is the promise of yoga.  Postures, breathing, meditation, self-inquiry and all the other practices offer us a way to accelerate the learning process.  The engine of yoga practice allows us to gain self-knowledge faster - and with fewer negative side effects - than merely the passage of time.  No spiritual intentions are required.  Simply to live a more effective, satisfying life is a worth educational goal.

As with any mechanism of acceleration, some caution is advised.  We want to be sure we are using yoga to fuel our higher qualities, not inflame our imbalances.  Therefore, the tradition insists that a teacher is necessary - someone who’s worked through more of the curriculum than us.  The classic yogic approach is the guru/disciple relationship, but this appears to be a poor fit for the modern age (all the reasons are a topic for another post).  Most pragmatically, there just aren’t enough true yoga masters to fill all the demand for teachers.  But there is another way.

In essence, the goal of the guru/disciple relationship is for the student to realize they contain their own inner teacher, just as wise (in fact, identical to) the external guru.  We all get glimpses of our inner teacher in moments of intuitive knowing, or finding ourselves in just the right place at the right time.  We can cultivate this connection, even if we don’t have access to a “100% certified enlightened” master.  We can learn to be our own “live-in” tutor.  We can look ahead in the text book and get our assignments done early, rather than wait for the “deadline” of time to force us to take action.

There are many methods for connecting to our inner guide.  I’ve found the Phoenix Rising approach to yoga to be one of the most direct.  It doesn’t require athletic prowess, prolonged sitting, or any particular belief system - just curiosity, honesty and a sense of adventure.  One format for the work is an 8-week group that blends yoga postures, meditation, self-inquiry into a powerful but friendly particle accelerator of learning.  Through daily practice, participants learn to use the experiences of everyday life as fuel for the learning process - no Himalayan caves required.

As it happens, I lead these groups a couple times a year.  The next one starts January 30, 2012.  You can learn more and register through my website.

Learning to Listen: a yoga story

Sometimes I envy animals. They flow through life, reacting spontaneously to whatever comes, unconcerned with such questions as “Should I eat meat? Is it organic, local, and well-educated enough? Does it work for my blood type?” A lion does not debate these questions. It is the gift and curse of our human neocortex that we have the self-awareness to consider different actions and choose what seems “best”. Moment after moment, we create our lives by choosing some things and not others. Our choices create habits, so in the future we are likely to keep choosing the way we did in the past. This is the teaching of karma in its most practical form.

I grew up in a family that honored the spiritual power of nature, but favored rationality as the criteria for making decisions. I developed a powerful intellect and excelled academically. I figured I’d go into physics, or some other scientific field. I vaguely imagined that my life would unfold as a series of logical decisions, and that I could apply my intelligence to “solve” my life like an equation.

Yet when I reflect on the path that I took to get where I am today - yoga teacher, yoga therapist, studio owner – I see that many key decisions arose through listening, inwardly and outwardly, to receive guidance. I have been discovering my life, not deducing it.

Yoga itself can be seen as a process of sharpening the inner ear so one can “hear” what is true and act accordingly. In this sense, I began practicing yoga long before I actually rolled out a sticky mat. But it was only through training to be a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT) practitioner that I began to consciously cultivate this listening.

In a one-on-one PRYT session, I place the client into supported yoga postures (akin to Thai massage) and use reflective dialogue to help him explore what comes up and how it relates to his life. I am the facilitator, rather than the prescriber. My presence helps the client learn to listen to the rich stream of information constantly flowing from his body, unconscious mind and higher knowing. The results of a session often include physical and emotional release, deep insight, and profound rest.

How do I choose the appropriate postures to use? I listen to the client’s words and movements and select stretches that will help him listen to his own experience more closely. For example, if a client says, “It feels like I just can’t let go,” and I see his shoulders are tight, I may traction his arms to bring more attention to the tension he’s holding there. I may ask, “What’s happening now?” as an invitation for him to notice and speak about his own experience. Or I might feel drawn to stretch his hamstrings. The session arises spontaneously. My intention is not to “fix” his tight shoulders according to a therapeutic plan, but to facilitate a process that arises in the present moment.

This non-planning was tough to swallow when I began my training. My rational, Computer-Science-major self wanted a formula: if client says X, do Y. My Honor Student self craved a guaranteed method to get an A+ in giving PRYT sessions. How could I take action without trying to control the outcome?

As I did the training, I realized this way of being was not so foreign after all. From 6-12th grade I studied improvisational theater at the Piven Theatre Workshop. We mostly played games, which trained us to relax our inhibitions and allow impulses to arise freely, flowing out as sound, movement, and eventually dialogue and character. We were encouraged “listen for the next beat” rather than try to plan it out. It was thrilling, transgressive and a little scary.

Or course, it’s one thing to make crazy animal noises with my peers; quite another to improvise a yoga therapy session with a paying client. It’s much harder to detach from the outcome when it’s part of your livelihood.

The majority of my PRYT training consisted of giving practice sessions and reflecting on the experience with a mentor. I became painfully aware of the many ways my own habits and beliefs condition my decisions. I discovered a strong desire to please the client and ensure they had a good session, which prevented me from doing anything that might challenge them. I started to question my choices, afraid they were tainted by my own agenda. I found myself declining to make any choices for fear of choosing the wrong postures or saying the wrong words.

My mentor encouraged me to reflect on the nature of this self-doubt. Among the many layers, I discovered another link to my past. When I was 14, I happened to pull the The Way of Zen by Alan Watts off my parents’ bookshelf. Something deep inside me recognized the truth of the Buddha’s teachings and the pursuit of enlightenment as a worthy goal. This was the beginning of my conscious spiritual quest.

I was particularly taken by the Zen view of words and concepts as inherently limited; the actual experience of seeing a tree is much different from the word “tree” or our mental image of a tree. Liberating truth is found in experiencing life in its raw state, rather than through the distorting lens of thought.

For this very reason, Zen warns against intellectual study without practice – yet through high school all I did was read about Zen. As predicted, I misunderstood the goal of spiritual practice to be “no thoughts” – that I must somehow eliminate thoughts, and if I was thinking, I must be doing something wrong.

Thus, when I began giving PRYT sessions and looked within for guidance as to which posture to choose, or what words to say, I was skeptical of any thoughts that came, even if they were good suggestions. I had the notion that intuition was exclusively wordless and magical. So I doubted every impulse that came along as a thought – which was most of them! The result was inaction.

Through my own personal work with the PRYT process, I realized that while many of my thoughts do indeed arise from the limited perspective of my ego, others are messengers from the wise part of me that knows just the right thing to do or say. I learned to tell the difference by listening to my body: an intuitive thought arrives with a whole-body feeling of clarity; a biased thought feels trapped in my skull, spinning and bouncing of the walls. When I’m grounded in my body, my thoughts become a tool I can use to help my client discover their own truth within the thicket of messy thoughts.

Following this reflection one step further, I owe that my ability to listen to my body comes primarily from my training in Kripalu Yoga. In this tradition, the student cultivates awareness of internal experience, rather than continually strive to improve the posture. Just as it’s hard to talk and listen at the same time, we can hear our body more clearly when we stop trying to “do” the posture and just allow it to happen. Often, spontaneous alignment, release and insight will arise when the body is given space without expectation. The same philosophy informs Phoenix Rising since Michael Lee, the founder of PRYT, also trained in Kripalu Yoga for many years.

Again and again, my PRYT training encouraged me to reflect on my life and see how my past informs who I am as a practitioner. I discovered that the inner wisdom I was learning to follow had been guiding my decisions all along: which college to attend, what major to pursue, who to date and marry, what work to do, when to open a studio. To be sure, each of these decisions brought moments of difficulty and doubting. Yet each arose with a whole-body knowing that gave me confidence to keep going, despite the second-guessing of my intellect.

It seems life has conspired to show me that things turn out well when I listen to myself, rather than seek external validation for my actions. Even so, when I consider the unknowable future, my mind still strains to figure out what will happen next. My shoulders tighten, and in my more conscious moments, I recognize this physical tension as a sign that my mind is wrestling with reality, trying to pin down an answer. I take a deep breath in and let it fall out of my mouth with a sigh. I stop what I’m doing, relax my body, and rest back into that deeper knowing. I remember once again that all the answers I need are available right here, in this moment. I just have to be still and quiet enough to hear them.

This essay was also published in Yoga Chicago, Jan/Feb 2011.

Negativity Bias

My current reading.  Fascinating stuff.  For example:

Did you know our brain has a negativity bias?  For the sake of survival, we evolved to pay much more attention to negative experiences (like a predator) than positive ones.  We are inclined to overlook good news, highlight bad news, ruminate more on negative experiences in the past, and worry about potential ones in the future.

This might explain our collective fixation on bad news - as demonstrated by the success of our largely fear-based 24-hour cable news networks.   Bad news holds our brains in rapt attention.  All the better to sell advertising time!

Falling Vs. Letting Go

I always assumed this season is named “Fall” because leaves are falling off the trees, withered and blown off the branches by the cold, dry wind.  I was fascinated to learn from NPR recently that something else is happening.  It’s dangerous for a tree to carry leaves during the winter; they get weighed down with snow and tear off branches, or they die when it freezes and hamper future growth.  So as the days grow shorted and colder, deciduous trees produce a chemical signal that causes branches to sever their connection to the leaves.  Then all it takes is a slight breeze to finish the job.   In other words, trees “push” their leaves off before they cause trouble.  The beauty of fall is an enjoyable side effect of trees adapting to the changing season.

How do we humans adapt to this change?  Do we feel like victims of the cold, dry wind, helplessly blown towards flu season, less exercise, and the busyness of the holidays?  Or can we make choices to adapt, like the trees?  Before electricity and urbanization, our pastoral ancestors in temperate climates had no choice but to adapt to changing light: more time inside, less work, more rest.  Our animal bodies still react to the change of seasons, but modern times demand that we continue our lives as usual.  In fact, we tend to be busiest around the winter solstice, when our body’s instinct is to rest and restore.

Since most of us do not have the luxury of hibernation, we should consider how we can support ourselves in continuing our daily tasks within a new season.  Starting now through December, we’re going to be crafting our yoga classes to help your body and mind stay balanced and healthy as winter approaches.  As warmth disappears from the outside world, we’ll cultivate our inner fire and prepare our digestion for heavier winter foods.  As the wind blows and schedules get crazy, we’ll explore our connection to the stable earth.  As the trees release their leaves, we’ll take up meditative practices that support letting go of what no longer serves us.

This was originally sent in our monthly newsletter, to which you can subscribe through by following this link.

The Yoga of Example

We spent the first half of August immersed in the world of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. I (Nick) had the chance to assist a Level 1 and 2 training in Northbrook, and then attend the first-ever Phoenix Rising Conference. It was a rich, inspiring soup of experiences. What stands out the most is a new respect for the power of modeling as an educational technique.

During the Level 1 and 2 trainings, I was there as an apprentice to Elissa Cobb, one of the directors of the Phoenix Rising organization. At first I was taking notes like crazy, trying to write down everything that Elissa said in order to reproduce it one day when I lead the training myself. Indeed, there are many important details that need to be communicated. Yet Elissa herself uses just two pages of brief notes for the whole four-day training! Eventually, it dawned on me that Elissa was generating the training from intention rather than a strict set of rules. Her fine-tuned words and actions arose from her deep understanding of the Phoenix Rising work. At that point, I started to pay more attention to the essence of the training process, and my notes dwindled.

Again and again, I was reminded of this quote by Carl Rogers:

Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me. 

The primacy of experience is a central tenet of Phoenix Rising work, and this carries through in the practitioner training process. Elissa taught mainly through demonstration and leading experiences, along with some technical instruction. She would freely answer questions, but it struck me that her way of answering the questions was more important than the words she spoke. She was careful in her words, always speaking from “my experience” rather than declarations of the “truth”. She gave examples rather than definite rules. She asked for the questioner’s thoughts before giving her own. She often said “I don’t know” or “It depends”. In all she said, she was modeling a deep respect for experience as the highest authority.

Recent neuroscience has discovered “mirror neurons” in the human brain that appear to synchronize our internal state with whomever we’re observing. Much research remains, but it appears to be a hardwired mechanism for empathy – literally “feeling with” another person. Mirror neurons may offer an explanation for the pedagogical power of role modeling. When we witness another person existing in a remarkable way, our brain takes on those same qualities. We experience life, if just briefly, through the cognitive lens of another.

This is experiential learning at a profound level, and it reminds me of the yogic concept of transmission. Many yogic teachings are considered inert unless they are directly passed from teacher to student. I have found this to be true in my own experience. My thinking mind can always question whether a particular meditation is working or not. But in the presence of someone who has mastered it themselves, I absorb their confidence and understanding, and doubt dissolves.

Finally, I am reminded of the power of sangha or spiritual fellowship. The Buddha emphasized that who we associate with is more influential than ethical behavior or meditation. We have evolved to be social beings. Regardless of our conscious intent, our companions can either uplift us or drag us down to their level. I think this is one reason it’s easier to practice yoga or meditate in a class, rather than solo. Moving and breathing as one, each person positively reinforces the collective mind of the group.

For these reasons, my Calm Within Chaos stress-relief program ends each session with a group speaking circle, where each participant has a chance to speak about their experience, and everyone else listens. It’s that simple. Not only is there power in speaking your own experience out loud, but the chance to witness other people as they work on themselves is deeply inspiring. Through the power of modeling, when one person discovers something true about themselves, the whole group benefits.

For example, I can write, “To truly take care of others, I must also take care of myself.” You may agree intellectually. But to be in my presence as I experience this truth is to receive a transmission beyond the mere words. In some way, you experience the truth of it, rather than just agree or disagree. When a group of people shares in the process of growth, we all go farther on the journey.

My next expedition into self-inquiry and stress transformation begins Monday, September 20, 7-9:30pm, and runs for 8 consecutive Mondays, plus a full day of practice on Sunday, October 17. See our website for details and registration. If you pay in full by September 1, you save $25.

Why Go on a Silent Retreat?

“I don’t know if I could go a whole day without talking!”

That’s a common response I hear when I tell people about my experience with silent retreats. I’ve mostly done 10-day retreats without speaking – and loved it (mostly) - but even the suggestion of 1 day spent in silence can be intimidating. Yogis and meditators have praised the benefits of silence for millennia. What’s so great about not talking?

It’s fairly obvious that air comes out of our mouths when we speak, but less apparent that we are also expending prana (life force). Think of how exhausted you feel after a party where you’ve been talking constantly for hours. It is not that speaking takes great muscular effort, but it excites the nervous system and often activates stressful mental patterns (“Does this person agree with me? Should I say something different? How could they say that!”) So when we deliberate restrain our speech, we are conserving energy. In a retreat, we use this conserved energy to deepen our practice.

As I discussed in my last post, one of the purposes of going on retreat is to change momentum. Consider a river – the water has considerable momentum as it flows downstream, but it’s not apparent when viewed from afar. The best way to discover the power of a river is to try to stop the flow. Place your hand into a stream - suddenly the momentum of the water is very apparent as it pushes strongly against your hand.

For most of our days, words flow out continually and unconsciously as speech, email, status updates, etc. The strength of this river of speech is only apparent when we place a barrier across it – the practice of silence (called mauna in Sanskrit). Then our words build up like water behind a dam, and we can see the contents of the river much more clearly. For this reason, practicing silence can actually get very noisy – all the words we would typically speak get “backed up” and swim through our minds.

At first, it may seem like our minds are actually getting more active and restless than usual. In fact, we are simply seeing what is usually unconscious. That’s a good thing! We must first see our habits clearly before we can change them. But it isn’t always pretty. Without the escape valve of speech, all our petty resentments and irrational fears are exposed. It’s like cleaning out a dank basement. The techniques of yoga will help us clear the air as quickly as possible, but we still have to sort through all the old stuff. This is one of the central practices of yoga – swadhyaya, the study of the self.

In mindful silence, the Witness emerges – that part of us that is pure awareness, without preferences or plans, yet full of loving-kindness. The more we learn to rest as the Witness of our experience, the more space we have to make clear choices, rather than be swept along in the current of habit. A retreat reconnects us to what is really true, and helps us cultivate the skill to put that truth into action in our lives.

Finally, a silent retreat gives us permission to step out of all our roles – parent, child, spouse, friend, employee – and just be natural, as we are. What a relief! To drop all responsibility and artifice is to rest deeply, to soothe and heal the body-mind. No amount of vacation on a tropical beach can do this.

At Grateful Yoga, we try to offer at least one retreat a year.  See our website for details.

How to Take a Day Off

Nothing sets the heart soaring like the idea of having “time off”. Whether we spend our days making money, volunteering, raising children or all of the above, we often spend spare moments contemplating how great it will be once the weekend arrives. “I can't wait to have some time off! Then I'll be happy!” Even yoga teachers think this from time to time.

Yet a truly restorative weekend is hard to find. Often, we schedule our weekends just as densely as our work week, and end up just running from place to place. Monday arrives and we're still tired. Or, we don't plan anything, but we end up feeling restless and fritter away our time on diversions. We get anxious as Sunday ends, unsatisfied, reluctant to return to work.

How many times do you come to Sunday and feel truly rested and rejuvenated for the coming week? Why is it so difficult to allow ourselves relax and “do nothing”?

Consider an insight from physics. Newton's first law describes the truth of momentum: an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. The same principle is at work in humans. We tend to repeat the same behaviors and attitudes unless an outside influence forces us to change. It's the natural result of neuroplasticity, our brain's ability to rewire itself according to patterns of usage. If we do the same thing enough times, that habit sinks into our brain structure, and it becomes harder to change.

From this perspective, we spend 5 days building up a momentum of busyness and stress. This momentum carries into the weekend, and so we stay busy – if just mentally - unless something intervenes. Two days off allows us to slow things down a little bit, but then it's Monday, and we're building speed again. Even a whole week of vacation will barely make a dent, especially if we fill it with sightseeing and activities.

We need a direct and sustained intervention if we want to truly slow down and create a new, conscious direction in our lives. Yoga offers time-tested methods for doing exactly that. Yoga class is helpful, especially if it is designed to change our energetic momentum*. But 90 minutes of yoga once or twice a week can only redirect our momentum slightly. How long does that post-yoga bliss really last? How long before our shoulder tense up again, or we find ourselves stressing out over trivial things?

In order to really STOP, we need to separate ourselves from our normal routine for an extended period of time. This the purpose of a yoga retreat. Over a whole day (or week... or month...), in the supportive structure of retreat, we have time and space to 1) see our momentum for what it is – usually a collection of habits we've picked up unconsciously from parents/friends/society - and 2) consciously redirect our life though the skillful application of yoga.

Going on a retreat is a way to truly take time “off”. Stepping away from our daily life, we dive deep into our practice, and reconnect to what truly nurtures and motivates us.