This is an 'old' (as in last year) email that I wrote.
This week we are looking into anger in our Meditations for Emotional Emergence(ies) course, so it feels appropriate to share it again.
Sure we got through the plebiscite (remember that?? or forgotten already?), but the sentiments I expressed in this email are still relevant. Anger is relevant. Getting angry is human. Here you go...
I am here to write you an email... something uplifting perhaps, something informative, something 'yog-ic' might be on the cards..... (I've never been comfortable with that classification or its partner 'un-yogi-ic').
But, instead I find myself brimming with anger.
The kind of anger that possibly lead me spontaneously combusting.
Real, shaking me to my bones anger.
Today my yoga is embracing my anger and doing something with it- preferably constructive, preferably not spontaneously combusting. I don't think Nat would find that very helpful. And you wont get your email ;) I like to think you like to hear from me....
Yoga is not about hiding from the hard stuff. It's about facing it, and doing what you need to do to work with that 'stuff' - whether its how fucking angry I am today about the marriage vote, or how heartbroken I am that people are still mass killing each other, or how distraught I can be that we just don't seem to collectively get that this planet is in crisis - these feelings are a part of my experience, and a very strong part of my experience today.
And if I pretend its all love and light, I am doing myself a great disservice, and you an even greater one.
To heal, we need to feel.
We need to summon up the courage to face the difficult emotions and sensations.
If we are going to support things in this world that are INCLUSIVE, we need to learn to be inclusive with ourselves.
If we are going to work with the pain in the world, to do 'something' to ease suffering, somewhere for someone or something... we best begin with ourselves.
If we are going to melt the walls of indifference and ignorance, we will need to soften to ourselves.
Truly, if we can't do this for ourselves, how the hell can we HONESTLY think we can do it for another. We will only be giving peace lip service.
Compassion is not for the select few. And it doesn't require any ritualistic practices either.
Love is not only for the lucky ones, or the ones deemed 'deserving". It's there for our acceptance, and acceptance is a path to love.
Pain is not for avoiding, its a message, for want of better word, that something and perhaps a lot of things needs to shift.
Pain in your body, is your bodies cry for you to do something differently - not to push through or push it down.
My anger today, is my hearts pain and my need to stand up and be counted. To regain the respect and social standing that someone stole from me when I upgraded from a husband to a wife. Because love. Because I love myself too much to stay in a relationship that does not honour all of who I am. Because I love myself too much to keep my heart in a box.
Because yoga has taught me that we are all one, that we are all equally deserving in life, and that to not recognise that there are people in my life that need support to be recognised and seen would be NOT doing my job. It would be pretending that we are all one and not recognising the great disparities that lie in our culture, and throughout humanity.
This is really why I yoga - to feel and to heal. Myself and our world.
If you want to learn ways that yoga and being in your body can support you to safely feel, to safely and confidently open your heart and soul to yourself and your world, then come to the yoga mat with me. This is the work I am sharing. Feeling, so we can heal.
It's all well and good to ask you to do 31 minutes of Breath of Fire, or 108 frog squats ( remember those!), but if you aren't in your body, feeling things, you aren't there. And the benefits are not really yours. A torn labrum or hamstring might be though.
If you are going through your days, living in your head, hiding from the challenges of life because it isn't in front of your face or it feels to hard to face - all that you are hiding from is life itself. It is beauty and ugliness, ease and struggle. And it all has value. It is all a part of who we are.
Yoga can be a wonderful place to explore connecting with the tough parts of life, the challenges in our body, and the uncomfortable parts of ourselves. It is my preferred tool, and even when I am being a 'yogi' I am a healer first, union, oneness is the name of the game. Inclusiveness if you will.
Group sessions, private sessions, courses, with me, or someone else you trust and connect with, that can hold the difficult spaces with you.
Whatever works best for you.
But do it for you, and for all of us.
You need you.
We need you.
with compassion, from my heart
Brie