Pain Appreciation

As we moved through our asanas today, we were encouraged to focus on what felt good about each pose. For me, this didn’t always mean what was most pleasurable. Some poses caused various parts of my body to burn like fire but rather than trying to escape, I breathed into it, facing it and feeling it fully. And with my attention focused on the feeling, I felt it morph and change. My very acceptance brought appreciation and often a softening of a tense muscle. 

At present, I’m going through a time off loss. Two of my very good friends, friends I associate with my life here in DC are moving away within the next few months. One to New Orleans, the other to India. Another of my friends has met a man she thinks might be The One and if he is, she’ll be moving to Boston. A childhood friend who I haven’t seen since I was 13 was staying with my family this week but will be going back overseas shortly and I’m not sure when I’ll see him again. All of this has made me feel sad. And the sadness is ok. But I realized that in this pain, there was also sweetness. And if I brought attention to it and sat with feeling of loss I’d be left with how much these people mean to me. How much I care them and how great my life is to have them in it. The depth of my sadness was equal to the depth of my love for them. While life may not be all pleasure, I can find the lesson in the discomfort.

Happy Hayride

My cheeks hurt.

My friends and I signed up to go on a hayride and campfire outing at a farm, this evening. I was driving and sent out a note to meet at the metro station at 5:25. One of the three misread the email and called me at 5:15 to ask where I was. Just as I got there to pick her up on time, we got a text from another one saying she was running late. In fact, she was still at home. The third called to tell us she had forgotten something and was on her way back to her apartment to pick it up. We were going to miss the boat…er…hayride. Also, it looked like it was going to rain.

What ensued involved some crazy coordination, picking people up on corners, speeding down back streets and refreshing the event page to make sure it wasn’t canceled due to inclement weather, even as we were racing against the clock. Somehow we made it there just before the hayride and the other 30 people we were going with left. It was raining, but with jackets and umbrellas, this was still happening.

They hayride bumped along around the farm and we were occasionally greeted by Halloween decorations or gussied up scarecrows. The rain continued off and on while we idly chatted. By the time we got back, we were half soaked from the drizzle and chilled. The campfire was a welcome site. There were hot dogs and s’mores and wine. We intermittently huddled under umbrellas around the campfire and the small tent where the food was. 

Ok, so it wasn’t the best night to have this event that we barely made. And I can think of so many reasons why we’d feel grumpy or want to leave or not go at all. But here’s the thing. No one complained. Everyone was chatty and happy to be there, despite the circumstances. We ate, we drank, we took crazy pictures. There were lots of jokes about wieners and buns on sticks (there’s something about a campfire that brings out the inner twelve year old) and marveling at the colors of the darkened night sky. Most of all there was laughter. We laughed about our crazy car antics, about not getting there on time, about the rain and wet hay, about the heat of the fire and at each other.

Tonight reminds me that attitude accounts for so much of our experiences in life. We can think ourselves miserable or we can accept what is and go forward, anyway.

Prop Master

I usually walk into my yoga classes about a minute before they are about to start, after most of the students have already settled in. They lie on their mats, with their blocks, blankets and straps arranged neatly next to them. I find a place to squeeze into and roll out my mat. And sit on it. Our teachers tend to stroll in late, so it’s not that I don’t have time to get props out of the cabinets. I just never do. “I rarely need them,” I think, “so I’ll just make do.” And if the teacher calls for props and I absolutely, positively require one, well then I’ll give in and get one. Otherwise, it’s just one more thing to put back at the end of class. This usually is an ok operating procedure until I’m pissed off in Pigeon and don’t know what to do with myself.

I tend to be a giver in most of my relationships. Friends call me when they have problems, I help them out when they need it, and I like to do little things to let them know I care. I’m a caretaker, but this is comfortable to me. Until it isn’t. Right now, it isn’t. I had four friends who needed a lot of support this past summer. They were going through issues that weren’t of their own devising and the least I could do was be there for them. I really empathized with what they were going through and it felt good to help. Now, thank goodness, they are all on the mend. But in recent weeks, I’ve been avoiding them. I don’t want to hear about another problem. I don’t want to give any more advice on what they should or shouldn’t do. I don’t want to pick them up from the metro station and give them rides. I don’t even want to hear about how much better they are doing. I’m pissed off and I don’t know what to do with myself. 

I feel bad for feeling so uncharitable and I know I got myself here. I’m feeling somewhat resentful and taken advantage of, even though rationally, I know rationally I haven’t been. I forgot to take care of myself. I forgot to maintain healthy boundaries. I forgot to account for my own needs and see that they be met. I put myself in a position without props. I allowed them to pull at me, just as gravity does in yoga, thinking I could handle it. And I could. But just because I can technically handle something without it breaking me, doesn’t mean it I should do it. Sometimes, the best thing not only for my immediate well-being, but for my long-term strength and practice, is to bolster myself. To rest or accept external assistance. To realize that even Wonder Woman needs her gadgets to help her fight crime.

Right now, I’m taking the time to focus on me for a bit and spending time with other friends. I’m also trying to not pull back from those friends who were leaning heavily this past summer, but to experiment with leaning on them to help me through.

Two Types of Friends

There are some friends that take a lot of work. They need constant attention and tending to and get hurt at the smallest of what they see as slights on your part. Unless you are on your death bed, you better not even think of changing plans with them.  These are not the ones to call when you are feeling cranky or selfish or down. It’s not that they won’t listen to you. They’ll listen. For awhile. Then tell you about everything their going through. Say you broke up with a boy the night before. This type of friend will share the juiciest detail about her most recent beau for your hearing pleasure. Not because they are cruel, but they don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to hear them prattle on for a half hour about their romantic successes at that particular moment. You’ll never hear the end of it. Some might say that these aren’t friends at all. But the world isn’t black and white and neither are people. These friends may be in your circle because of a variety of redeeming traits that allow you to put up with the heavy lifting their friendship requires. 

But then there are the friends that are a delight to be around. They are the ones you can call up at the last minute to make or change plans based on how you both feel. You haven’t talked in a month because life got away from your (again) but within minutes you are giggling like school girls. They show genuine interest in your life, just as you do in theirs. You both get excited for them just as you would for your own self. These are the friends that you decide to go last minute Saturday morning day trip with on a Friday night. So what if it’ll take you three hours there and back? You can’t wait for the chance to chat in the car. 

Like most people, I have both types of friends in my life. I bought tickets three months ago to see one of my favorite bands this coming week with my attention-heavy friend. And I have to be honest and admit I’m not looking forward to it nearly as much as my impromptu day trip to the beach tomorrow with my easier friend. But, I do value them both and the former does help me to appreciate the latter all the more.

Investigating Blues

I wasn’t feeling well for the first two weeks of April. It seems like there is a lot of that going around in my group of friends and acquaintances. Not sure why. As it was, my heart felt closed, I was battling a bout of heavy insecurity and the world weighed heavy on my shoulders. It scared me to think I could be that down when nothing really was that wrong. In hindsight, I see that the physical ailments most probably had a heavy impact on my emotional state. For all I know, it was the moon as well. But whatever the case, I think my emotional state needed tending to. I needed the crisis of faith to do some soul searching and to come up anew. I don’t feel 100 percent yet, but I do feel the tides have changed.

Last night I went out with a friend to a mixer. She and I bumped into a friend of mine and his male friend. My friend and his friend started talking and I instantly felt this pain in my heart.  I didn’t know what it was, but it was mired in insecurity. 

Later on, after much self chastising and judgment, I cultivated curiosity and neutrality and unpacked it. What lay there came out to be something like this: What if they start dating, get into a relationship and she’ll be one less single friend I have and I’ll feel even more lonely than I do now? What If I’m left behind? 

I know this sounds presumptuous, selfish and childlike. But it’s from my child self that this arose. The one who had experience with abandonment and being excluded. Shedding light on it is somewhat embarrassing, but also a little freeing. I was able to see it for what it was. This time I didn’t try to talk myself out of thinking this way as I had hours earlier. I just stayed with the emotion with acceptance. I just kept feeling. Eventually, I asked what was true.

What is true is that I’m capable of all types of love and I love deeply. This feeling was so mired in childhood fear that it couldn’t see love. But as an adult, I can choose to allow love to flow through me, lighting up the depths where my fear hid. Love for my friends, love for myself, love for the possibilities life had to offer. My friend finding love wasn’t a threat to me. My fear of her finding love was a threat to me. It kept us apart. It kept me from being authentic and vulnerable. I could cultivate love and draw more love into my life or I could covet fear and beget even more fear in my life. How did I want to live?

I think I’ll be playing matchmaker soon enough.