The Visitation

In September and October of this year, I went through a 4-week 200 hour yoga teacher training (YTT). Every week we focused on a different type of yoga. Week one was hatha, week two was vinyasa, week three was yin, and week four was restorative. I had no expectations for this training, but I was also ready for whatever might happen. I had heard stories of other yogi’s reactions and experiences while going through YTT, so I was prepared as much I could be.

Through the first two weeks of the training, I was coursing with energy. I felt like I was plugged into a socket, and I had an unlimited electrical current. When one practices yoga daily, I learned that it was not uncommon for the chakras to open, and the channels to clear to allow energy to flow freely. In the past, I had practiced yoga one to three times a week. During this training, we practiced six to seven times a week. Apparently, I had tapped into a continuous energy source.

It was during the third week I had a powerful and emotional experience. It was during this week, my energy changed. Yin yoga, or really any yoga for that matter, can bring about emotions. I think especially in Yin yoga because the purpose is to hold poses for an extended period of time. When we hold poses, it can help unlock trapped emotions. While I “emotionally” skated by in the first two weeks, feeling a positive emotional charge, it quickly changed in week three.

When week three began, I was looking forward to it because my body was tired of the more intense physical yoga, but I got more than I was expecting. From the very first pose in Yin yoga, I found myself getting angry especially in poses like reclined butterfly, baby dragon, twisted dragon, fire-breathing dragon, frog and sleeping swan. I noticed I was the angriest when I had sensations in my hip flexors and groin. Luckily I knew emotions might arise, but it was still alarming to feel anger taking over for no apparent reason.

When I do feel anger, I know it is not a primary emotion. There is always another emotion trailing behind it that wants attention. I just have to be willing to converse with the feelings, let them surface and uncover themselves from their hiding places, and speak.

On one particular day, I felt more frustrated than usual. As I was holding the yin postures, I felt as if I had no choice. In yin postures, we are supposed to sit with the sensations we feel, as long as it isn’t painful, and just notice what is going on. As I was in dangling pose, also known as uttanasana, I felt anger crawling up through my spine and belly and making its way towards my throat. I felt mad because I didn’t want to feel the sensations that day; I didn’t want to hold the poses for 5 minutes. But I eventually backed off of the pose. While I was hanging, I rested my hands on blocks instead. Suddenly, I felt less angry and more like I had a choice. Once my body realized that, it actually started to open more.

As we moved through the yin yoga practice, anger kept popping up, and I continued to make the choice to sit with it. In one particular pose, baby dragon, I started to struggle. As I felt all the tingly and uncomfortable sensations in my hips and groin, the anger ignited like a fueled fire. As my anger peaked, I started to cry. It can be quite maddening to experience emotions with no apparent cause why. I was also battling with the fact that I was crying in front of other people. I have no issue with crying, as I find it to be a good release, but normally I am in the safety of my house and not in front of strangers. In spite of my reservations, I didn’t want to deny this release, these emotions, so I allowed it to happen.

As my tears fell, I started to feel my mom’s presence. My mom passed away in December 2014, and there have been moments where I felt like she was around especially right after she passed away. It was usually through dreams or symbols like songs on the radio, double rainbows, and birds and their behaviors. But over the last two years, there has been a drought. I have felt alone left wondering if I had disappointed my mom or if she had just simply moved on.

As suddenly as my anger appeared, so did my mom’s love. My tears turned to joy and sadness. As I held the pose, the feeling of my mom’s love intensified. I was in a cocoon of security and comfort like being in her womb. It energetically felt as if my mom had her arm wrapped around my shoulder. I hadn’t felt a reciprocated bond in years and certainly not like these feelings I was having.

My tears continued to fall taking my anger with it. I felt wrapped in love. We moved through our practice and more postures. My tears continued to fall because I missed my mom so much. My mom was there; her spirit was tangible, or at least her love was. As we settled into one of our final poses, reclined butterfly pose, I felt my mom again. I felt the actual weight of her love like an invisible blanket had been draped across me. I was able to feel, receive and accept her love.

There are so many times I just want to share my life with my mom. I miss talking with her daily. I want to hear how her day went and what she experienced. I miss having the one person who knew me in a way no one else could; the woman who gave me life. I will never share a similar bond with anyone else. What I am left with are saved voicemails from her, photographs that just keep getting older and a peace lily plant from her memorial.

To have this momentary connection of my mom being present again reminded me of our bond: the love of two souls who agreed to be a part of each other’s lives through birth, life, death and rebirth.

Solitary Confinement

I am almost halfway through a 4-week yoga teacher training. Today my assignment is to disconnect from the world. I am supposed to try to not talk, I am not supposed to use my phone for any purpose, I should not use the internet or watch any television, and I am supposed to avoid any distractions that take me away from my “self.” I have decided throughout this day to blog about my experience because I am allowed to write, journal and read if it helps me to connect to my “self.”

I have no idea what to expect from this experience. I am not someone who shies away from alone time. I spend a lot of time in nature; I love to run, do yoga, write and journal, and I enjoy reading. But I already have this feeling of, “What do I do with myself?” I am one hour into my silence, and I have been home for 30 minutes. I already feel like I have so much time. Since I have been home, I have washed a load of laundry, I folded a load of laundry, I took my dog out to use the bathroom, I made breakfast, and I am working on this blog. My day feels like an expansive canyon that continues to spread out. I am able to imagine all sorts of possibilities and options.

I want to run on a new trail I discovered. I want to take my dog for a walk. I want to write. I want to play on a new disc golf course by my house. I want to continue working on a puzzle I am in the middle of. I want to meditate and practice my yoga postures. I want to take a nap…But I realize part of this assignment is just to be. To be an actual human “being”, not just doing. But the things I truly enjoy doing connect me to my authentic self. I am not just trying to fill my day with meaningless actions.

I think some of the problems we experience here in the States are filling our time with things that don’t matter. We just try to fill “dead” space. So we zone out on the television. We spend hours down a Youtube rabbit hole. We will be on social media for hours on end. Then we find ourselves more disconnected from ourselves, and we wonder where the time has went. Another problem we run in to is zoning out on the things we have to do. We take ourselves out of moments like when we shower, when we cook, when we walk our dog, when we do laundry and so on. We let our minds drift while we do these tasks, and we just give moments away; we just give our treasured life away by not being present. So my main focus is to do what ignites my inner flame. To do the things that take me home within myself.

I also want to allow even more time for self-reflection. I am two weeks into my training, and I am realizing and able to see how much I have grown and learned over the years. Since this training began, I feel bad ass. I feel secure; I feel powerful and beautiful. There have been some obstacles, but I feel deeply rooted in my “self.” I trust myself, I trust my feelings, and I trust the things I know. I have not wavered. This isn’t in a “I know better than everyone else” or “I am always right” sort of way. This is in a “I know who I am, what my boundaries are, and what I expect out of myself and other people” sort of way. It is a strong feeling of self. Of feeling cemented in who I am.

***

I have now been in silence for 6 hours. I took a 90 minute nap which was refreshing. I also walked my dog through our downtown area. I actually felt like a voyeur. I was peering into this world, the people moving about, and the cars driving by, yet I felt separate from it all. Besides walking through the streets and past other people, I had no tether to my surroundings. I just felt like an observer.

I also ran the trail I found by my house. I have driven past this trail for almost two years, and I just started to notice it a year ago. This seemed like a great time to actually run it, and I love trying new running routes. I love the surprise of not knowing what is coming around each turn, what I will see, and what the terrain will be like. This run turned out to be quite fitting for my current circumstance. I didn’t see any other people on the trail. The trail followed the river, and it followed the outskirts of town. While I was on this run, I was once again a voyeur. I watched the cars driving over the bridge unaware that I was spying on them. I saw my town from a distance seeing it from a whole new angle. I was really able to see each individual house that was built into the hills of the city. I was also on the side of the river I had never been on. There were herons wading. Several times they flew ahead of me leading me along the path. A hummingbird zipped by stopping at a flower. The grass has been freshly cut and it awoke my sense of smell.

The trail ended up being 2 miles long, so I ran an out and back which made it 4 miles. I ended up in a moving meditation as well. I really connected to myself and my surroundings. I took turns focusing on my different senses as I ran. I listened to the sounds around me: car engines, plane engines, and bird calls. I felt the sensations in my body: my leg muscles tightening as I pushed off the ground, my arms pumping to the rhythm of my feet, the last of the summer breeze blowing through, and the air flowing in and out of my lungs. I focused on my sense of smell as well, but the freshly cut grass was so powerful it just dominated. I looked around me and devoured the sights: the shallow river with wading birds, the uneven trail with banana slugs and their slime sticking to the blades of grass, the green trees comprised of individual, unique leaves, and the mountains sitting in the skyline.

***

My evening is starting to wind down. I have some studying to do, and a meditation and breath work to do. But it has been helpful to write about my feelings and experiences as they happen. It is helping me deeply connect with the moment I am in. Writing this blog is bringing up a new perspective as well. This feels like my one link to the outside world. I have no contact with my loved ones. I have no real contact with the outside world. It is just my dog and I in this clear bubble, and I am not even conversing with my dog. But writing out my experiences knowing I plan on sharing them with others gives me a strange feeling of connection. It is like a spider web; I am the circular center and the filament branches outward connecting me to others.

I think we are also used to sharing  ourselves, our lives and our experiences with others. We either physically share moments with people, we talk, write or text our experiences to others, and then there is even social media where we can share our daily lives. Today has been interesting because at this moment, no one actually knows what I am going through or what I have done. But in this solitude, I have felt that invisible thread that ties every last one of us together.

Thrill

While I am friendly, outgoing and boisterous at times, I would definitely fall into the category of an introvert. I recharge by spending time alone and spending time in nature, but I also feel this deep connection to humanity. One of the reasons I love traveling is because I get to talk to all different types of people. Whether I am on an airplane, sitting at a bar, or running a race, I always connect with strangers.

Maybe this is the thrill people get from having a one-night stand. I have had people recommend one night stands to me as if they were casually suggesting their favorite Starbuck’s drink. “You should just totally pick the cute guy at the end of the bar and go home with him; he keeps smiling at you. Oh and by the way have you tried the new Starbuck’s Blonde Espresso?” The idea absolutely frightens me, and I never could understand the joy of having sex with someone I didn’t know. Yet, no one could ever explain the “thrilling” feeling to me either.

However, I think I understand. I think I might understand what people were trying to express. But instead of sexually connecting with a complete stranger for one evening, I enjoy intellectually and emotionally connecting with a complete stranger.

I just finished reading Brene Brown’s newest book “Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone,” and I just returned from a recent trip to Victoria, B.C., Canada; the combination of these two things got me to think about how divisive our world has become, but how much I enjoyed connecting and sharing with people. How in fleeting moments, I just see another human for who they are, and they see me for who I am. This has really helped to shape me and my beliefs. I give most people the benefit of the doubt because I know we all have a story because I have heard those stories, and I have shared my stories.

One evening while I was in Canada, I was walking back the 1.3 km (.80 miles) to my hotel from a lounge, and I saw a homeless man in a wheelchair who appeared to have had suffered a stroke. He was in his 60’s, he was covered in a blanket, and he was slowly pushing his wheelchair backwards with his right leg: his only fully functioning leg. The streets were scattered with people. Several people passed this man in his wheelchair, and I was about to be one of those people as well until I heard him say, “Excuse me.” His speech still reflected the effects of his stroke. I stopped walking and answered him. He said, “Would you push me?”

I was surprised by his request, and it really affected me. It affected me because I thought this man has a lot of courage. See, that is one of my weaknesses: asking for help and relying on others. I saw his vulnerability as beautiful. Not vulnerable as in weak or needy, but vulnerable as in open and admitting that he could use some help to get to where he was going. That concept really is foreign to me.

So I answered, “Yes.” After pushing him for several blocks, he reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. He pulled out two and offered me one. I declined, but I thought it was a kind gesture considering this gentleman didn’t have a lot to offer, but what he did have he was willing to share.

As we continued this walk together, I became emotional. Just sharing in a vulnerable moment with a complete stranger was powerful. When we were close to my hotel, I bid the gentleman farewell. He asked if I had any money to spare, and I gladly shared the 5 Canadian dollars I had with him, and I wished him a good evening.

Time and time again I have these moments with complete strangers that make me feel like I truly understand life and human connection. It is seeing soul to soul. It makes me want to know, to learn and to see more people; it makes me want to be seen.

In 2015 right before Christmas, a year after I lost both of my parents to cancer, I decided to take a trip to the Ashram in the Bahamas. On the flight back home, I was seated next to a young Jamaican man. When he sat down, he smiled at me and I mirrored his infectious smile. As the flight was taking off, he began to make small talk with me. Within 15 minutes of the flight taking off, we had delved into deep, heart connecting conversations.

I found out he was on his way to Atlanta to move in with sister and begin college. He was 22 years old and had lived in the Bahamas his whole life. He said living in the Bahamas did not offer him a lot of opportunities. Two of his siblings had moved to Atlanta already, so he wanted to better himself as well and venture out. He admitted he was torn though because he was leaving behind two younger siblings. His mother had just passed away from breast cancer. She was the glue of the family. She was the nurturer and comforter. His father was tougher and rougher around the edges. While his mom was open and loving, his dad was rigid and closed off. He said he never ever really connected with his father, and they fought often. He admitted he really missed his mother, and he didn’t want to leave his siblings behind in the Bahamas; however, he really needed this new opportunity to better himself and his life, and he needed space from his father.

Because of his vulnerability and open heart, I found myself sharing my story as well. I began to tell him about losing both of my parents to cancer within 6 months of each other. I opened up about my relationship with both of my parents as well. I shared the stories of love between my parents and I, but also the triangle of dysfunction that bonded us. I told him about the journey I was on to travel and see the world, and how I had started to call myself an adventurer-explorer.

I had felt so alone that year. The people I was closest to tried to be there for me, but unless someone has experienced a big loss, empathy can only go so far. Most of the time it wasn’t even empathy that people were offering, it was sympathy. Other people can’t live in the day to day pain, the hour to hour pain, or even the minute to minute pain that someone else experiences from a death of a loved one. Unfortunately there is no “break” from the pain of losing a loved one, especially when it is fresh. While everyone else returned to their lives, I was left holding the pain and loss in my cupped hands as it continued to overflow the rim of my fingers. I was left to process it on my own. Then to meet a young man who was a different race, a different gender, and from different country and background, and have him understand me like no one had in a year was a gift. He was a beautiful, youthful, sweet gift. I can only hope I offered him the same peace and comfort.

We shared in one another’s pain, in one another’s journey, and we saw each other for who we were in that moment. There were no barriers, no masks, no bullshit. There were two human beings opening their hearts to one another. The conversation flowed and moved with ease like a sweet lullaby sung to a baby. For 2 hours and 15 minutes, it felt like we were the only two people on the plane. When we landed, we wished each other luck, encouragement and condolences. I felt my heart welling up with good will for a human I had only known for 135 minutes.

All I wished for this young man was peace, hope, and a bright future.