The magic of self-work!

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As a Yoga practitioner, I am a strong believer in the power of meditation as a wholistic approach to life. Through the practice of meditation, I have learned the power of my mind. It is through my mind that I live my life, and it is through the practice of meditation that I can gradually train myself to calm my mind, create space between my thoughts and my actions, and change my perspectives or at least accept that they are just one way of seeing things.

I am learning the power of living life ‘inside out’ as my teacher calls it. I have learned to observe myself in all situations, especially in those that bring stress and distress and ask myself, ‘what can I change in my mind to better deal with this?’ So, every once in a while, reflecting about situations in which I experience stress, I set myself a goal on how I can change the situation by changing my perspective, my attitude or my behaviour.

For a while I have been thinking that if we all were willing to work with ourselves, it would be easier to interact with each other, we would take better care of each other, our environment and all living beings.

This week, during one of my meditation sessions, one of my students shared that she had set herself the goal of being less judgemental of her boss at work. In the past, she had experienced ending up in conflict with her boss, often because she had a negative opinion on certain things her boss did or said. She decided to put her effort in her work and not waste her energy in things out of her control. I asked her how this strategy is working so far, and she said that she had noticed a change of attitude in her boss too, and that they have had some good conversations. Once, her boss answered back in a harsh way and apologised shortly after without it escalating into a conflict.

I couldn’t help but wonder if my student’s boss also had the purpose of changing some attitudes and behaviours towards my student (and maybe all the employees). I really liked this idea. Imagine if we all were constantly reflecting about how we interact with the world around us, and when we notice room for improvement, instead of pointing our fingers at others, we decide to start with our own attitudes.

Less judgement, more magic

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My yoga teacher recently advised me to to take the process of preparing for and running my yoga classes as an opportunity to learn and develop. This, with the purpose of detaching from ‘ego’. He also advised not to be fixated with the idea that ‘I want to teach’.

This resonated with me, also when it comes to reducing stress. The process would then go like this: I get an idea, I plan a layout, I advertise, and I run my classes with a clear intention. The rest is out of my hands, and therefore, I don’t need to worry about it. If the idea works, if people sign up and get something out of my classes, I feel humbly happy, if not, I’ll try something different next time, or try again. I don’t know how this idea transferred into my ‘other job’ in a slightly different manner, but it is still helping me a lot this first days of the Fall semester.

Usually, the start of the school year is quite stressing for me (and for many other teachers, I guess). I have tried in the past to take it easy, but it has been as if my nervous system has a life of its own.

So, this year, I decided to take a different mental approach: 1) Prepare as well as I can in the circumstances I have (time, resources, space, etc) with the intention of receiving my students with awareness and respect. 2) Refrain from having a personal opinion on everything that happens in a school day. Unpredictable things happen, changes happen, mistakes happen, and they sometimes feel like obstacles in the course I had in mind when I planned my lessons, but the less time and energy I spend rejecting these obstacles and getting all emotional about them, the more present I can be to grasp the situation and turn it into a learning experience for my students and myself.

This is, in a way, one of the main principles of Karma Yoga. Do your thing without attaching to the action or the fruits of the action.

I saw the magic of this attitude happen today. Since we started with our new schedules today, one of my colleagues made a mistake, and sent her students into my classroom before our lesson was over. When she realised this, we agreed that it would take too much time for her students to move back to her classroom, so they could stay and continue working silently on a task she had prepared but had thought they didn’t have time to do before she sent them up to my classroom.

Instead of getting caught up in the frustration of having to deal with an unforeseen change, and feeding into the emotion with the whys and the hows of this mistake, I first tried to see if I could tweak my lesson plan. I was attaching to ‘my plan’. I gave my students ten minutes to revise some vocabulary, and while they did this, I realised how great the idea of my colleague was.

After my students were done revising, I decided to let them do the same reading activity their peers were doing, with some adjustments. The last 20 minutes of the lesson went smoothly. I walked around to see what my students were reading, ask and answer questions. Thanks to this little mistake, I have a new idea in my lesson repertoire. No stress. No attitude from me towards my colleague. I just allowed myself to go with the flow.

I don’t know what this school year will bring. Every year brings its challenges, and we also have the pandemic adding uncertainty to the whole equation. I only hope, I will remember the advise from my teacher. I hope I’ll remember to be present, be humble, learn, and continue flowing. When I let go of judgement, stress, and worry, magic happens.

The only way out is through

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Over the years, I have come to realise that I dislike emotional pain so much that I try to avoid it as much as I can, often in very stupid ways.

I sometimes ‘predict’ how a situation is going to make me feel so I either go around dreading the moment it is going to happen (which like with most predictions, never happens), or I do something impulsive to avoid the pain making an unnecessary mess.

The source of my distress is in some cases insecurity and fear of being judged or rejected. It comes from my attachment to an image of myself I want so badly to keep and people to have of me. I know what I stand for, I believe it comes from a good space, but I’m afraid of the conflict different opinions can create.

In other cases, the source is the unwillingness to face things as they are because I wish they were different. So I avoid the situation or go ahead and blame. It is funny how we believe blaming helps, but it really doesn’t make us feel better.

Expectations are also a problem. The mind game of expectations is quite refined in my case. I don’t like the gap between what I expect and how things turn out, so I either avoid or expect the worse (haha). So I show up already with a bad attitude, when in reality I don’t know what is going on I happen.

Some weeks ago, I decided to be courageous and:

  1. Stop predicting (duh!)
  2. When in a situation that I perceive as emotionally painful, take a deep breath and just observe the pain. Not run away, not act impulsively.
  3. Understand that the so-called pain comes from the gap between what I expect and what is really happening.

So far, I can say that it is helping. I believe that, the less resistance I make to myself and what is happening around me, the less I struggle.

It sometimes feels liberating, it sometimes sucks big time because I have to face what I don’t want to face.

This said, I believe that I gain a bit more understanding of how my mind works, and it allows me to move a bit up and further…

Mi almohada

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Hay noches en las que
mi almohada se vuelve un campo de batalla
entre los fantasmas que mi mente ha creado
y la consciencia más allá de mi mente
Eventos de mi vida cotidiana
Se vuelven armas de fuego 
cargadas con balas de duda, desmerecimiento y frustración
Al pasar la sorpresa de tal ataque
Mi japa se vuelve mi escudo 
Y la batalla comienza
Repito mi japa y mi cuerpo encuentra paz
Pero mi mente encuentra la manera de atacar de nuevo
Es el cansancio quien tiene la última palabra
Y en mis sueños apareces para recordarme
'Suelta el miedo'
Un abrazo
La mañana tiene un sabor a victoria
Gracias

The Egg Saga

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Two weeks ago, one of my daughters and I went orienteering in the forest with a friend and colleague. While we were walking from one post to another, my friend found a little blue egg on the moss. It had been windy and rainy a couple of days before, so we thought it might had fallen from a nest.

We discussed what to do with the egg, and after some hesitation, we decided to take it home and try to see if we managed to hatch it. I packed the egg in some paper and put it in a little box I had in my backpack. When I got home and showed it to my youngest daughter, she asked why on earth I would take an egg home from the forest. It was a good opportunity to discuss what is right to do in a situation like this, and I confessed I didn’t know for sure I had done the right thing.

We checked online what to do, and the advice in Norway was very clear: let it be no matter what. We found a cardboard Easter egg from some years ago that we had decorated with some fabric inside, and we decided to put the egg in it to keep it warm. We placed it on the window where the sun heats the most in the evening while we figure out how to ‘help’ it.

While researching for what to do with the little egg, I found an article online where I learned that here in Norway, we are obliged to act when finding a wounded animal.

My friend followed up on the egg, and she sent us a good article with advice on how to find out if an egg is alive. We found out there was no bird in it. Maybe that was the reason why it was on the moss to begin with. I think we learned that we shouldn’t mess up with nature, most probably this egg would have become food for another animal if we had left it in the forest but we had good intentions.

Today, my daughters and I went to visit another friend who has a girl around their age. After dinner, my friend and I sat at their porch while the girls went out to play. After some minutes, my youngest and my friend’s daughter came back with a wounded bird. I don’t know much about birds, but I recognised it was a Great Spotted Woodpecker, and I could see it was badly wounded. Obviously, the girls wanted to ‘help’ it.

I was so thankful for having read the article two weeks ago about wounded animals! On one side, I had an ‘excuse’ to act as my friend wasn’t very keen to have the wounded bird on their porch, and on the other, well, I knew what I had to do. I called the vet and she gave me two options: either bring the bird to them or call the police who would put me in contact with the authority who takes care of wild animals. I chose the latter, and I talked with a man who to my big relief told me would come to see the bird within an hour.

He arrived, looked at the bird, listened to the girls’ story about how and where they found it. He told us it was a young bird, and that maybe the nest wasn’t far away. We walked with him around but it wasn’t possible to figure out where the nest could be. They usually nest in high trees, and there was no high tree around. They can sometimes find a whole on the wall of a house.

He took the bird out of the little cage the girls had put it in, and after examining it, he concluded that it was too wounded to try to let it heal. It had most probably hit a window or a wall and its skull was broken. He would take it with him and put it down.

I don’t know if it is age, or maybe the internal work I have been doing the past five years, but seeing this wounded bird really made an impression on me, and I was so thankful for having found the information about what to do just by chance when we found the blue egg. I am thankful for living in a country where there is a phone one can ring to get support to help a wounded animal out of its misery.

We could have chosen to leave the bird in the forest behind the neighbourhood, and it would eventually have died or been eaten by another animal. I know this is the cycle of life, but helping a sentient being out of its suffering felt more natural. A life is a life. We all wish to get some help when we are in pain.

Here’s some gratitude for knowledge that comes randomly and turns out unexpectedly useful. Gratitude also for life, peace and joy while it lasts. May we all find support when we hit the wall.