Be Bwave

Posted on June 7, 2010 by kristinshepherd

My kids have finally driven me crazy. It wasn’t the baby thing or the teenage thing. They’ll be 23 and 21 this summer.

It was them becoming shockingly, mouth-droppingly inspiring human beings that did me in.

My daughter is in China for 5 weeks of adventure.  Because she can, she says. She’s taking a break from a master’s degree. The most important thing in doing this degree, she tells me, is making sure that it remains her own adventure every single day. She refuses to do any part of it because of  anyone else’s expectations or hopes.

Her self-assuredness takes my breath away.

My son has always wanted to be an actor. Two years ago, he quit one theatre program 5 months in, knowing it was absolutely wrong for him. It was a tough time.

What he did know was that he loved living in Toronto and loved acting. So he got his own apartment, waited tables, and acted anywhere he could.

Something like a year later, he cleared his thousandth table and thought, I don’t want to be a waiter for the rest of my life.

He applied to the best theatre school in Canada, auditioned along with 400 others for 12 spots, and got in. We screamed for minutes on the phone when he heard the news.

I am happier than a whirling dervish for them both.

But.

They make me horribly aware that there are places in my life where I have not aimed high enough. Where I have not taken huge chances to pursue the things I want most. I don’t know that I’ve ever SAID all the things I want most, even to myself, for god’s sake, for fear of failing while looking like an idiot.

I could tear my skin off, this makes me so crazy.

So.

I’ve decided to change some big things. By being more honest about what I want to do and what I no longer want to do.  I am going to make this my own adventure.

And I’m scared.   I thought it was our job to inspire them, not the other way  ’round.

My daughter’s last words before leaving for China were, be bwave, mum. Be bwave.

Tell me. If you were any bwaver, would your life change in any way?

I’d love to hear.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin

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PopTart Yoga

Posted on June 4, 2010 by kristinshepherd

hst040.jpgFor the rest of my life, when the subject of PopTarts comes up, I’ll either have to tell shifty-eyed lies or I’ll have to tell the truth. I’ll start with the truth right now.

I’ve been away all week at a theatre festival.  This means hotel beds, hotel roommates, late nights, and crazy food–meat or soy balls covered in sweet sauces, served on toothpicks that really add up on your plate. More cheese and crackers than you’ve eaten in your life, and the kinds of sweet squares we all serve at weddings, funerals, board meetings–you know these things.

Day One.
I begin the week like an angel.  An hour of yoga at 5:30 am in the hotel gym.  I grab a corner of the room, squeeze myself between two treadmills and a wall-to-wall mirror, and do my best on a concrete floor covered in stained indoor-outdoor carpet.  It isn’t class, but it’s okay.

Day Two.
At 5:30 am, I do 45 minutes of yoga, which is pretty great given four hours of sleep and a really puffy face. (Is it the salt?  The meat/soyballs?)

It’s no fun staring at a bloated version of your own face in a mirror the size of Canada.  And all those people thumping on treadmills, jeez.  Not to mention CNN on the TV. Om.

Day Three.
At 5:15 am, because my roommate is snoring and I can’t sleep anyway, I do 30 minutes of yoga in the hallway outside my room on the 10th floor of the hotel.  The carpet is thicker here, and I’m not up to the social thing with the weightlifters, the runners, and the mirror. My face is the puffiest yet.  I’ve been eating sauce balls at midnight for three days.  Why don’t I stop eating them?  I have no idea.

This was a good morning of yoga.  I prepare for a wee Savasana at the end.  I lie down. Suddenly a man emerges–naked–from the room across the hall to retrieve his newspaper from the floor outside his door.   He yells.  I yell.  Then he screams: “I’m sorry!” and flees back into his room. I am too rattled for Savasana.

Day Four.
I don’t do any yoga this morning. Instead, I sit in the hallway at 5am and read bad news from the newspaper outside my door.  I open and eat the first PopTart of my life.  (It was in a goodie bag we were given on arrival.  I laughed at the absurdity of PopTarts then.  I’m not laughing now.)  It is not my finest moment.  Not my finest day.

Day Five.
At Home.Here’s the lesson for me:
I’m human.  I do well on some days, and some days I forget everything I’ve learned about yoga, decent food, and kindness to myself. I can hardly wait for class tomorrow.

What reminds you to get back to your practice?

Thanks to PopTarts, naked men, and meat/soyballs, which help me understand, again, how beautiful yoga is. And thanks to you for the conversation.

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Turning me Around

Posted on June 2, 2010 by kristinshepherd

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I’ve had a really busy week. It involved cramming four days of work into one day–today. I ran around this morning not very like a Buddhist monk with her head cut off.

By the time I got to yoga class at noon, I was disappointed with myself and my roller coaster relationship with the world. This is no time for me to be social.

But. But it is my only chance to get to class this week, unless I can find one while traveling over the next few days. And it’s a drag chanting om by myself.

So I climb the stairs, get changed, and put a mat down. I don’t look at anyone. Class starts, I hang over my feet, and I breathe. I can’t tell you how this saves me on a day like this. Before too long I look at my teacher, I begin to smile at the way his count of 5 is far more like 39, and I hear the breathing all around me.

Toward the end of class, we’re in a sitting spinal twist. I’m enjoying it. It’s easier than it was last week. I glance up and meet the eyes of the woman on the next mat.

“Turn the other way,” she says.

“What?”

“You’re turned the wrong way,” she whispers.

She has no idea how right she is. I turn the other way and find the twist exactly as difficult as it was last week. Then I take a second to glance around the room at these people who are kind enough to share a room with strangers in the pursuit of something kinder, stronger, and more flexible than the rest of the day. And I belt out om like my life depends on it when class ends.
Thanks to my neighbor for turning me around and thanks to you for the conversation.

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Yoga Zombies

Posted on May 27, 2010 by kristinshepherd

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I was at a meditation retreat last week. Do you know what they’re like? Grainy, leafy food in portions your pet fish couldn’t survive on, no talking, no reading, no car keys, no wallet, no calling home. It isn’t Club Med.

Just meditating, dawn ’till after dusk. It can be lonely. But some fantastic things happen.

Here is one very cool thing. Picture this: 5am, maybe. (No watches.) Still dark out, anyway. I come out of my room each morning, slowly and silently, and head toward the meditation hall, dressed in pajamas.

As I walk down the hall, every third or fourth door opens, and another person in pajamas comes out, quietly closing a door behind her. We look like something from a zombie movie, except that some of the zombies have mats under their arms.

We walk in bare feet to the hall where we each pick a spot on the floor. We begin our practice. All you can hear is breathing and the soft thuds of feet jumping forward and back. It’s impromptu Mysore. No one organized or announced it.

It goes on for perhaps forty minutes, people drifting in and out of the hall. All of this happens before we begin meditating for the day.

And, holy mackerel, even though we don’t speak, don’t even look at each other for the most part, even though we’re about to begin another grueling day of seated meditation, I am deliriously happy.

I don’t want to leave the impression that meditating is awful from start to finish. Other very cool things that happen on these retreats are an empty, quiet head and a sense of peace that will knock you over if you let it. I love it. Days later I can still feel it.

I feel a need to express some thanks to these zombie yogis. They were my family away from home. We showed up for each other first thing in the morning on days when it mattered.

So to these men and women I don’t know, and to the ones I do know but didn’t say a word to: thank you, thank you, thank you.You made meditating a little easier, and you made me fall in love with yoga all over again.

Thanks to yoga zombies for making me fall in love with yoga, and thanks to you for the conversation.

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Thanks to The Naked Guy

Posted on May 27, 2010 by kristinshepherd

I keep thinking of this naked guy I had a thing with last week. I wish I could see him again.

I was at a theatre festival, and I was strung out.

By strung out, I mean that I was doing theatre with heaps of people from dawn till the wee hours each morning.

I was feeding meatballs and Nanaimo bars at midnight to an increasingly resentful gut.

And I’d had no solitary time.  None.  I couldn’t breathe.

I found myself in the hallway outside my hotel room one morning at 5am.  My roommate was snoring and I was going insane for the need of some quiet.

I did a bit of yoga in the hallway. That felt good.

I thought I’d meditate for a few minutes, thought I’d try to relax for the first time in days.

I lay on my back in the hallway, palms facing up. I closed my eyes and took one breath.

Then I heard the  scream.

The door across the hall was open, and a naked man stood there, mouth wide open. He’d come out of his room to retrieve the newspaper outside his door.

My guess is he thought he’d have some privacy at 5am.

I screamed back.

He screamed again. This time he screamed, I’m sorry. Then he turned and fled back into his room.

I couldn’t meditate after that.  (Could you???)

But I’m meditating on it now.

Here’s what I’d like to say to the guy now:

Hey. I’m sorry about the other morning. I’ll bet we were both looking for a bit of quiet time. Quiet time is hard to find in a hotel, in a city that isn’t your own.

Come to think of it, quiet time is hard to find anywhere, anytime, even if you live by yourself.

I’d like to tell him that I think quiet time is worth screaming for, and I feel we’re kindred spirits.

In fact I wonder if we’re all naked, kindred spirits looking for a place to breathe.

Thanks to the naked guy, and thanks to you for the conversation,

kristin

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Following Delicious: Build Your Home Practice One Bite at a Time

Posted on May 25, 2010 by kristinshepherd

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I’d love to thank a couple of Yoga Journal readers who commented on a blog I posted about morning practice. Both Ty and Kelly said things about wishing they could summon the discipline or the inspiration to do morning practice.

I found myself shouting back to them when I read their lovely comments.  Turns out they can’t hear me when I’m shouting. So I’ll say this in writing.

First, there are experts to listen to.  So don’t listen to me unless it inspires you. I’m a yoga weenie.  So new I squeak. But here’s one weenie’s thought on the subject of building a home practice.

I started my home practice in three minutes one night on my living room carpet. I did it because I found Friday tough.  I loved my Tuesday class but I was doing drive-bys on Fridays. Do you know about those? You drive to class and your car goes right by.  You drive by again and you end up at home, eating S&V chips and wishing you had some willpower. I was up to it on Tuesday but not at the end of the week.

So I did two Sun Salutations one night. I liked it. It grew slowly, slowly from there. Three Sun Salutations. Four Sun Salutations and a quickie Warrior II. Five Sun Salutations, Warrior II, and Savasana. And so it went.

One of the huge reasons I’m so into yoga is that it is DELICIOUS. In my home practice, I follow delicious as it gets bigger and longer.  It’s like following a trail of chocolate brownies, but better.

To Ty and Kelly, I hope this is helpful in some way.  If not, keep looking and you’ll find the answer that inspires you.

In the meantime: thanks to all who comment for your thoughts, and thanks to you for continuing the conversation.

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Yoga Junkie

Posted on May 18, 2010 by kristinshepherd

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It’s 7:30 in the morning, and my phone rings.  It’s my sister sounding like an undercover cop on surveillance: whispery voice, hand cupped over the phone, shifty eyes.

“I really love yoga,” she says. “You have no idea how much I love yoga right now.”

She’s a new yoga junkie. It happens. We arrive here from other sports, other pastimes, other loves, and we fall into yoga like matter into black holes.

I’ll bet you’ve had these hushed conversations.

“What about running?” I asked a yoga friend when he first fell. “I dunno,” he said. “I don’t want to run as much. It doesn’t help my yoga.” This, from marathon runner to marathon runner.

“I’m supposed to ride tomorrow, and all I want to do is go to yoga,” my sister continues. “I know,” I say. “I know the feeling.”

“I can jump through to a seated position,” she says. “Learned that last night.”

“Oh yeah,” I say, knowingly. “That’s good.”

“And I’m starting to get that thing about lifting my heart without sticking my front ribs out. You have no idea how good that is.”

“Oh yeah?” I say.

“Oh yeah,” she confirms. “And another thing: did I mention that my knees don’t hurt when I’m walking to work, now? Did I mention that?”

Yeah, you did, but that’s okay.

“You have no idea how good that is,” she persists.

I don’t want to scare anybody, but this is the way you begin to talk to the people you love. You can go on running, cycling, and all the rest of it. No one’s going to stop you, but you might love this yoga thing more than you thought.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Thanks to yoga for the inspiration, and thanks to you for the conversation.

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Cover Girl

Posted on May 13, 2010 by kristinshepherd

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I mentioned I was visiting Toronto on the weekend, going to a new yoga studio for the first time, and doing a class with my sister (and my nephew, it turns out). I was nervous about venturing away from my home studio, and I wanted to share a few things I learned from toeing my comfort line:

1. Sun Salutations are not so different from place to place. This makes me very happy. No matter where I travel–now–I can find a home. Makes me feel warm all over, thinking that.

2. Speaking of warm all over, the studio I visited was a few degrees warmer than my home base. It only mattered when I stood up from one of those hanging my head poses (just a second, I’ll look it up – aha!) when I stood up from Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Forward Bend), and came the closest I’ve ever come to fainting. Maybe that’s peri-menopause. Maybe it’s a surge of some fantastic yogi energy. I don’t know; it’s a new yoga mystery.

3. The chanting was completely different in this class. And it was fast. It was like trying to sing the Italian national anthem.

4. Bandas. What are they? I think I understand the idea of Bandas, but I do not have any control over them yet. Foolishly, I asked our teacher Oliver to pick a pose for our photograph (see above). This pose (I’m not looking this one up. I’ll look it up when I’m 76, when I might be able to do it!) requires some Banda control. It’s his favorite pose. It’s my least favorite pose. I just sit on the floor and make faces.

5. Speaking of faces, my head was recently shaved for a theatre production. I look like a 13-year-old boy at the moment. It’s not my favorite look. It occurs to me that I may never end up on the cover of Yoga Journal.

6. I love my sister Tory and my nephew Stefano. There’s nothing like doing a yoga class with people you love.

7. I learned again that I adore yoga. Thanks to everyone and everything that brought me here, including Tory, Stef, and Oliver.

I’d like to know who would you love to do yoga with, if you could do it with anyone?

Thanks to yoga for helping me grow, and thanks to you for the conversation.

–Kristin Shepherd

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Meditate Your Head Off

Posted on May 13, 2010 by kristinshepherd

I shouldn’t be writing this. No question. I should be on a chair at home staring at a speck on the wall.

I’ve just come home from a four day meditation retreat.

You know the kind.

They take your watch, your phone, your wallet, and your keys when you get there.

You don’t talk unless it is a part of the meditation.

You don’t talk when someone meets you in a hallway.

You don’t talk while you eat miniscule, grainy, leafy meals.

You don’t talk to your roommate. Just nod and get in and out of the bathroom quickly, and into bed. Which is just as well because these days go from maybe 5 or 6 am (there are no watches to look at) to perhaps 10 or 11pm.

You meditate your face off in between.

This sounds awful.

I loved it.

Loved the quiet, loved meals being made for me, and portions being chosen for me. (I assure you I would have chosen portions seven or eight times larger. I would have chosen desserts, too.)

I loved the singular focus of the work, the focusing on one thing all day instead of making breakfast, who walks the dog, where’s my clean shirt, god is it that time already, ooh, I ate too much porridge, jesus, look at my hair, etc. And all of that before leaving for the office to begin a day of ridiculous multi-multitasking.

I love the way my head emptied and stayed empty.

I loved the way my stomach and body felt like a really great dream. Effortlessly.

I love the way, at the end of it all, I stared at my car and my phone and wondered why I own those things.

I love the way I felt about myself, my lovely man, my kids, and my dog when I arrived home.

Do yourself a favour. Meditate.

Some way, somehow, give it a whirl.

It transforms.

Thanks for the conversation,

kristin

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Some Days We Are Enormous

Posted on May 11, 2010 by kristinshepherd

AA052612.jpgI go to two yoga classes a week, but I do my own practice at home every single day. I adore it, and I wouldn’t miss it for much.

It’s still dark when I get out of bed, I shuffle to the kitchen and make a coffee (perhaps when I am a real yogi I’ll drink something healthier), drink half of it, set the timer on the microwave, and begin.

The first three Sun Salutations feel a bit tight, a bit creaky. Even my mind is tight and creaky. I’m thinking about getting my hands positioned correctly, thinking about rotating my thighs inward and pulling that lower belly in (something I have no idea how to do, still). Heels closer to the floor, shoulder blades down, etc. You know all of this.

Then something or someone–some larger part of me, perhaps–begins to well up. The rabid thinking slows down. Something warm and delicious takes its place. I begin to feel more generous with my positioning. I feel happy all of a sudden, and light.

Some days, about ten Sun Salutations in, this thing takes over and I go crazy, like a whirling dervish. My breath pours in and squeezes out, I’m warm from the inside out, I am strong, I am beautiful, and I am huge, somehow. Unconstrained. You should see my Warrior II pose. I fill the living room. I fill the house.

I love those days.

This morning was one of those days. I’d set the timer for 70 minutes and was so enormous by the end of it that I didn’t hear it go off. Best Savasana ever.

Does this ever happen to you?

Thanks to yoga for making us huge, and thanks to you for the conversation.
–Kristin Shepherd

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