Yoga with Dawn

Imagine that you want to break open a coconut. Whether you break it open by lovingly knocking it over your knee, or with one forceful swipe of a machete, either way you look at it, the coconut is broken; the coconut is open. This is how my heart feels after my relationship of four and a half years ended not two weeks ago. Before you offer pity, pass judgment, cast blame, please don’t. Luckily, it ended with love, care, and respect. It was a beautiful relationship with a beautiful ending. This blog post is not to talk about and analyze the relationship, but rather to share my experience of moving through this difficult time with a broken, and open, heart.

(Writer’s note: By “open”, I don’t mean “Open for Business”, so please, no “nudge nudge wink wink”s.)

Some of you may be saying to yourself, “What a way to start the month of love – talking about losing it!” This post is, by no means, meant to put a damper on the sea of red presently in pharmacies, department stores, book stores, and Hallmark shops that you may adore. Really, I feel like it’s appropriate… Yes, some may consider February to be the month of love, so what better time to open yourself to the love around you?

After my break up, I felt so fragile, so raw, and as a result, more sensitive. My suffering kept me in the present moment like no other experience (other than meditation). From experience, I knew staying stuck in the past wouldn’t be helpful, nor hanging on to future false hopes, and of course, creating stories or replaying past experiences are also really not productive, so I almost welcomed how my pain kept me in the moment. Walking, holding this pain, letting it flow through me, forced me to slow down, and as a result, I became a tourist in my own city. In a beautifully painful way, I saw the sun in a new way, felt the cold air on my skin in a new way as I walked for hours outside (something I almost never do, unless it’s at least 25 above), and had become more sensitive to other people’s stories and situations.

Although I teach from where I am in my life and practice at that moment, I don’t often share intimate details about my life in class. I teach using general dharma terms. Never (or not in a while, anyway), had I received so much positive feedback, how students felt I was speaking to them specifically, and how it was helpful for exactly what they were living in that moment. This made me realize that love and suffering are universal concepts that everyone experiences. Everyone has felt love (or longs for it) and everyone has suffered (or is suffering).

One thing I feel is worthy to note is that love and suffering are relative. Whether you’re 6 years old, 30 years old, or 60 years old, it is still suffering, and can still be traumatic, regardless of your age. And as much as these universal concepts of love and suffering unite us, no-one really truly knows the dynamic of your relationship.

Given that, I had friends ask me, “How can you not be angry?” Although I must agree that it is often easier to fixate on the negative and be angry, I was grateful that I wasn’t. I spent this past weekend on a silent meditation retreat and Matt Flickstein used a beautiful image of bungee jumping – even if we go into deep states of meditation (jumping off the high ledge), resentment and anger can pull us back to exactly where we began (the boing of the bungee cord). I’d rather take the 5 years of meditation and almost 100 nights in silent retreat that I’ve so far invested and put them to good use!

Staying with the discomfort of painful feelings, in my opinion, takes courage. Most people tend to push their suffering away because they feel it is or will be overwhelming. Although I’m right in the thick of it and I can’t say for sure, I do know that opening to the suffering is a lot less scary than I expected. We tend to take relationships, especially sexual and romantic relationships, very personal but as soon as you realize that you “simply” (another relative term) got caught in your partner’s suffering, you can be freed. Oddly enough, I find comfort in the “It’s not you, it’s me” phrase.

Also noteworthy is that being vulnerable is not a negative in any way, rather, it is a courageous act. I can only guess based on how I feel now that once you survive an extremely vulnerable experience, it becomes empowering. As one of my very good and supportive friends told me:

With each New Year usually comes New Year’s Resolutions – a noteworthy concept but so rarely do they become a permanent change in our lives, which sometimes lead to feelings of anger or disappointment. Why not try something new and different this year (or decade, for that matter!)? Resolve to Evolve – and trade in your goals for an intention. Resolutions are great because they help provide us with a direction, but they’re a future objective. By definition, the very word “future” shows they are not grounded in the present moment. With that being said, what happens if your resolution doesn’t pan out?

Disappointment, confusion, or anger usually set in and without the proper tools, we are left with nothing to regain our mental footing. This is where intentions come in. They are the underlying layer beneath our resolutions and they help us to reorient ourselves if our mind is confused with strong emotion. They also provide us with integrity and unity, and help us to be less reactive to the continuous fluctuations of life. Unlike goals, intentions are not future oriented, they are anchored in any present moment (key word being “any”). In practice, the same posture, the same sequence, the same meditation done with a different intention takes on an entirely new meaning and will have entirely different outcomes. Without a larger purpose we may be just stretching our hamstrings. But depending on our intention, we can be cultivating patience, compassion, anything we want.

What are intentions? They are phrases that are private and personal, and begin with the words, “May I…”. A common question I get is “Why ‘May I…’?” It’s not that we’re asking anyone permission to be a certain way, we are simply inviting our true nature to present itself. As with any invitation, we ask politely, as opposed to demanding its presence. Our intention does not need to be grandiose, but it does need to be sincere because it sets the stage for all that will follow. We might have some guiding intention in our practice for months, if not years. or our intention may change from week to week. Ironically, by being in touch with and acting from our true intentions, we become more effective in reaching our goals than when we act from wants and insecurities.

Remember! This practice is called a practice because it is an ever-renewing process. As with any spiritual discipline, the essence of intentions is our willingness to start over, and over, and over (and over) again. Every day of the year (even every moment) should be a day of resolution to live the life we want, not just on January 1st.

A few tricks I’ve tried in the past to help me integrate the practice of Intentions into daily life include:

• Set a timer several times a day and when it goes off, repeat your intention (or simply set your watch to “beep” every hour)
• Stick Post-It notes in key places to remind you to repeat your intention (e.g. on your bathroom mirror, on the telephone, on the wall next to the front door)
• Ask yourself “What is my intention?” before speaking, especially when emotionally charged (from personal experience, this has saved me from many potential conflicts!)

Inspirations:

The Energy of Money: A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment by Maria Nemeth Ph.D.

The Heart’s Intentions by Phillip Moffit

Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living by Donna Farhi