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Three years of Bikram yoga

the 26 Bikram yoga poses

Last summer, during the holidays, I didn’t want to stop practicing Bikram, so I made the commitment to myself to get up at 6am to get to the studio to practice three times a week.

I am not a morning person. It was hard and sometimes the only way I got there on time was to go to bed in my leggings ready to run out the door. Don’t tell anyone!

True flexibility requires tremendous strength.

Now I can be quite a flexible girl. In the right heat when it’s all feeling good and juicy I can put my feet on my head in cobra pose which amazes me. So imagine my surprise when I found out that at 6am, my body was super stiff and I found it difficult to do any of the standing poses I thought I had gotten halfway decent at during the previous two and a half years. It was then that I had the revelation that true flexibility requires tremendous strength.

I have short arms, not like a T-Rex, but nonetheless my hands do not reach the floor in toe stand and I cannot fully bend over and hold my foot in standing head to knee pose. I don’t have enough arm length, something I came to realise on those early mornings. I had no choice but to use my leg strength to get my foot into my hand. And then in standing pulling bow pose, I was using my arm to pull my leg up but on a morning when my arm couldn’t stretch, I had to kick up with my leg. I had been using flexibility, not strength.

This made me see that I wanted to be strong and flexible enough to adapt both mentally and physically in any situation. So, if I couldn’t practice at my favourite time, in my favourite spot, with my body feeling just right, I would be ok with that. I realised that I want to do what I can, where I am. It is called a yoga practice for that reason and I realised that yoga is not separate from the rest of my life. I am me on and off the mat.

A more acceptable me

All my life I have believed that yoga will get me somewhere, like I will become the better more acceptable version of me. I will be a teetotal, vegan yogi who thinks only good thoughts. I will be tall and skinny with long arms and I won’t grow old. This is not only unrealistic. It is nuts. Life throws up all sorts of challenges and the way that you look doesn’t always help and there’s only one alternative to ageing. But, even though I have written loads about social psychology and women in society, I still think that if only I could be thinner and younger (I guess in reality sexier – but I have a theory about that) I could be more acceptable to me.

Moreover, I have heard all the stories of yogis like Bikram Choudhury who sexually abused his students and yet has created the best sequence of yoga I have continually and consistently ever experienced. And B K S Iyengar who would spit at and hit his students, and yet he wrote Light on Life full of wisdom and peace. I guess they were both aspiring to be their best versions when creating sequences and writing and then they turned back into themselves in the yoga room.

On and off the mat we are the same

On the mat I am the same so I get the same thoughts and fears as I do when I am off it. The clever thing about Bikram though is, because of the heat and the fact I listen to a dialogue of instructions, I am distracted from my daily thoughts and all my energies go into breathing and doing what I am told and then if there is any energy left to think about something not in the room then that is a dominant thought pattern that my mind keeps returning to, and the only thing is to let it go.

And then, once you get used to the dialogue it then takes great mental strength to keep listening, to be attentive, to follow every word and great flexibility to hear the dialogue as if it is new when you have heard it 1,000 times already.

After a discussion on Friday with one lovely teacher, today in class, I listened really hard in standing pulling bow pose and instead of just bringing my arm down, I brought my whole body forward and down, which meant I had to kick my leg up higher to retain my balance and there was a small shift inside and a new discovery and I felt a massive stretch all down my standing leg which meant that my kicking leg kicked higher than ever before. Flexibility and strength working together.

But back to last summer on the mat at 6am, when I was beginning to understand the balance of flexibility and strength, I found that more than ever I needed to do that off the mat too. Because it was early morning I took the car to Bikram rather than walking the 10,000 steps. And, because my mother had died a couple of months earlier I was exhausted from grief and began comfort eating. Consequently, I gained a lot of weight but kept thinking: How is that possible? I do Bikram. But Bikram as good as it is, is not a cure for everything.

It was towards the end of summer when I was getting really strong and chubby – I think I gained an extra 10lbs which is a lot for my five foot frame. I mentioned it to a yoga pal one morning who said: Oh yes you used to look so great. I was relieved by her honesty as I could tell when I bent over to pick up my foot that I had a couple of spare tyres in the way and I really thought I was going to split my yoga pants. And, from that I learnt again that it takes tremendous strength to look at yourself honestly and see what is going on and to be honest with others. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or cookie-fest, or an easy way to share difficult news. And I can tell you it takes tremendous flexibility to love the new chubby version of yourself in the mirror.

That said, I know I am the same chubby or normal weight. I prefer being slimmer as all my clothes fit better and I hate shopping. However, I won’t miraculously turn into a different person if I lose the extra weight. I will still be me, chubby or slim, on or off the mat. I am me, and I am me, and I am me.

Flexibility without strength could be damaging

When the summer ended and school started again I was able to practice again at 10 am. I noticed that I was stronger than before but bendy once more and it took a bit of adapting to not overbend because it is no good being flexible without strength. And, this is the same off the mat, if I am too flexible without knowing my limits and without respecting my boundaries, I could seriously damage myself or worse still allow someone else to damage me.

Lately, I have been practising Bikram three to four times a week, as life does tend to get in the way of a dedicated practice, but I have made my peace with that. Everything in moderation, including Bikram. My own experience is that three times a week is enough for a maintenance level, five times a week changes my body. I will never be a teetotal vegan either, I would be miserable. I like red wine and steak and beer and chips but I can do those things in moderation too. There’s no need to behave like Henry VIII.

I am still carrying some chub, and that is ok, but now that spring is coming, I am thinking that I am ready to do a 30 day challenge, and whilst part of me is excited thinking: Oooooh that would definitely shift the chub, part of me feels quite scared of committing to 30 days of straight up yoga and feeling super duper knackered. Or worse still, not following through.

Balancing Act

I guess I just have to take my own advice and know whether I do it or not, and whether I can or cannot finish it, to be truly flexible I must be strong enough to do what is right for me and the life I have. I will still be me, chubby or slim, meeting 30 day challenges or not, and some days I am my best version and some day I am not, I am me and I am enough and that is the gift Bikram yoga has given me over the past three years. It has brought me home to myself and allowed me to learn how to love and appreciate the fine body in which I dwell.

Namaste!

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Society of the mind: A Rhumba of Ruths

What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. —Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind.

Recently, I watched the episode The Relaxation Integration (S10, E3) of the Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon keeps dreaming of being Laid-Back Sheldon. At the end of episode he has a council of Sheldons to decide if Laid-Back Sheldon gets a say in Sheldon’s life. This got me thinking: What goes on in my council of Ruths? Is there a Laid-Back Ruth?

I don’t think there is. Not yet anyway. What do you even call a council of Ruths? A rising? A regiment? I looked up animal groups for one with an r. There was a raft, a run, a rabble, but I decided on a rhumba which is defined as a complex, violent dance. Yes, I would definitely say that is going on inside my head. Who is in charge? I am worried that it is Emergency Ruth.

Emergency Ruth

Emergency Ruth woke me up last night. I was in a deep sleep and then around 1am, she woke me up mid-panic, flailing and drowning. I smacked my husband around the head who didn’t seem to notice but sat up a couple of minutes later to wonder why he was awake at 1am.

Emergency Ruth is great. She is fabulous in a crisis. She pays attention to detail, she can spot what will go wrong miles ahead of everyone else. She always turns in a top-quality performance even when she is a completely knackered-in, nervous wreck. She can sprint down to A&E. She can stay up all night pressing buttons on a dialysis machine or a food pump, pass an NG tube, inject a tiny baby with a big needle, or herself, if no one else is around. She can give you, or a tiny cat, medicine on the hour every hour, with a syringe all night, or help you write a paper and meet your deadline. She sucks it up, sleepless, fearless (well she pretends she is) and does the thing that needs to be done: that medical procedure, that difficult conversation, that potential-to-get-nasty situation. Emergency Ruth is a total badass and she has my back.

But, in the middle of the night, when she should stand down, she is on red-alert, flight or fight, and she wakes me several times a night, every night, with a false alarm, and if I am too tired and fall into the dark night of the soul, she cannot help me feel better because that’s not what she does. Every morning she wakes me with a story of panic and a crick in my neck. She is intense.

Lately, I have taken to greeting her with: Good Morning, Doom. It makes me laugh and allows a tiny space in which Hippy Ruth can breathe and help unfurl my clenched heart.

Hippy Ruth

Sat chit ananda. I love Hippy Ruth. She had us vegetarian and organic for years. She rescues spiders and puts them through the cat flap. She recycles everything and wastes nothing. She worries about the environment, landfills, and data centres but talks to Techno Ruth who calms her, so that she truly believes that everything has a solution and all is well.

Hippy Ruth made us stopped dying our hair to grow it out and make it big and hippy once more, like it always was. She also makes us wear shorts at Bikram, so that we can embrace our body. She loves us. She loves our life. She is the best version of us. She is kind and compassionate and loves everyone, especially those people who behave badly towards us, for they are the most needy. (Emergency Ruth would eat them for breakfast.)

Hippy Ruth is happy on her mat or zazen cushion but equally happy to be interrupted part way through because she understands the tantra – or weaving – of the tapestry of life. Hippy Ruth knows that the mystical is to be found in the kitchen and the cuddles, as well as in the silence and the space of solitude. Always calm she hears the still small voice within.

Wild and Free Ruth

Wild and Free Ruth is an old, old joke between my husband and I. Though writing this, I asked him: What about Sensible Ruth? He said: I don’t think there is one. Wild and Free Ruth hates routine and doesn’t manage well in one. When she gets out, she’s up all night living wild and free. She is all about connection and go with the flow. But she doesn’t have the wisdom or the yin and yang of Hippy Ruth so she can fall into doing foolish things, and never says no even when she must. She is freespirited, rolls with it, sees what happens. She has a massive appetite for life and the ability to see the funny side in anything.

We’ve had some great times, hitching round the Alps, sleeping on the beach in Cinquaterra, flying to Kandmandu last minute and hoping our pal really meant it when she said she’d see us there, because Wild and Free Ruth always keeps a promise even if it’s a crazy one.

According to my husband Wild and Free Ruth causes trouble even when under lock and key, and my mother used to say: You’d cause a row in an empty house, but that’s just their opinion.

Boro Ruth

Boro Ruth is the bit of us who knew exactly what she liked to do and how she liked to be, before a million other people got involved and told her not to.

She discovered very early on that she liked: yoga, rollerskating, making music, zoning out (Hippy Ruth calls it meditation), the mystical and magical, the library, avoiding boring conversation. The things we still love to do today.

She loves anything which will make her life easy which is why she is fascinated by technology and can type faster than she speaks. Boro Ruth loves to talk, to learn, to teach and September – falling leaves and the promise of a new academic year.

She lives life like it matters and knows, as all kids do, that there is no need to improve the self. There is only acceptance. We are all just part of a bigger dance, there’s nothing else to do but to enjoy it.

Team Ruth

Team Ruth loves company and finds that everything is better in a group. She loves doing Bikram and meditation in a studio with like minded people. She soaks up that fantastic group energy and shares the love.

Ruth’s best programming happens in teams. She loves solution sharing and working super hard so her bit is ready for the person who needs it. She loves the art of great documentation and beautifully commented code which someone else can understand even when she is not around.

And, then the celebration at the end. Celebrations are always better in a team.

In a fabulous podcast hosted by SoundsTrue and which I listened to four times – it is that good, Mindfulness professor John Kabat-Zinn says that mindfulness is really about heartfulness, or open-heartedness, and not anything to do with the mind at all. I find this a really lovely thought and super encouraging. For as much as these personalities run around in my mind with a few others I haven’t outlined [like Techno Ruth who is a complete nerd, or Stalker Ruth (see what I did there?) who loves to research obsessively], it is a relief not to be limited by those personalities or stories, or any experiences I have had. As the Buddha said:

Nothing is to be clung to as I, me or my.

No clinging, but we don’t mind a cuddle as we welcome new joiners, I am looking forward to Laid-Back Ruth signing up and contrary to popular belief, I’m sure Sensible Ruth is already in there somewhere, I can’t wait til she’s ready to speak.

Group Hug, Ruths!

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Sit. Feast on your blogs

My blogging tag cloud generated by wordclouds.com

I have had this blog 11 years now. It feels like a lifetime ago when I first installed WordPress complete with the Kubrick WordPress theme as a place just for me to come and figure out what I thought.

Recently, I discovered my Top Posts for all days ending … which sounds very dramatic and very satisfying, so thought I would look at my most popular top 11 posts of all time and remember how I wrote them. In order of most popular first, here goes:

1) Stalkers in space and Facebook in your face, (February, 2007)

I wrote this blog as I was fascinated by someone’s reaction to me googling them even though everyone else I knew had been online for years and so didn’t mind, but then that was from an era where we decided what to put online, nowadays because of genealogy websites and companies house there is a lot more information in the public domain about a person than they may even realise, anyone can find out anything. The Internet makes it super easy to become a Stalker!

But even now, this blog post gets read by someone everyday, and in the top ten search terms of all time there’s: facebook 1995, facebook, facebook screenshot, old facebook, early facebook screenshots, facebook webpage, facebook 2007

The other three terms are: ruth stalker firth, design pattern, IT security.

I love search terms. They are fascinating. So, I was saddened when Google decided to keep search terms private as I am a total nerd and love patterns (see 3) in statistics and words, which is why I find the above tag cloud completely beautiful. However, I do remember there was a lot Stalker search terms kept coming up and bringing them here.

And, people googling me helped me to decide to put up an About page as I hadn’t had one for a long time. I find About pages really interesting on other peoples’ websites so am thinking that people might want to know more about me. I added a Now page inspired by the NowNowNow initiative and I use it myself. It is like a to-do list.

2) User motivation: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, (December, 2007)

I remember being very pregnant writing this and I had been already given the news that there was a problem with my unborn child’s kidneys. So, I came here to think about Crannogs and holidays instead of googling renal fetal problems and driving myself mad with worry.

For me, technology is all about people, and humans are the central factor in any design project. Maslow’s hierarchy is a lovely way of organising things from social media (see 4) to chakras, though he only used two women in his sample of people but since women have rarely been written about, I am glad he used two. I can’t find anything better to organise our human experience which is to be felt, seen, heard. Soon I will write about Maslow’s hierarchy of technology.

3) Using patterns to shape our world, (March, 2007)

I’ve long been excited about patterns. In my PhD research I looked for patterns in my big data and graphical-user interfaces, which reminds me of the time my husband and I were in a restaurant arguing about whether object-oriented design was good for graphical-user interface design, the people on the next table asked to be reseated far away from us.

I have written quite a few blogs about finding the patterns in storytelling, in data (see 10), and in design. This was the very first blog I wrote about it and it thrills me to see that it gets read nearly as often as the social media blogs.

4) Maslow’s hierarchy of social media, (April, 2015)

I love thinking about social media, again what motivates people to share which is the need to be experienced. This is one of my favourite blogs as it was the first time I figured out what social media was about and how we use it. From this blog came the social animal on social media series which regularly gets hits because we like to know why we do what we do and social media is fascinating.

5) Chemotherapy: The year of my hair, (October 2012)

My hair was always my crowning glory and people would comment it on it all the time. It was big and black and beautiful, though for many years, out of a bottle. So, to be completely bald wasn’t much of a giggle even though it was only for four months. Sadly, though it never grew back in quite the same way, my hair is a lot less curly now. When I took off my wig and had a shorn head, people used to tell me that I was brave for getting a haircut that short. It felt really nice and furry and my baby girls would rub my head.

Brave was the term people used again when gave up the hair dye so I am not surprised that Fifty shades of my grey hair, (December 2016) came in no. 12 of all time even though it is relatively new. People like pictures to guide them through their own hair growth. I know I do. I still look at both sets of pictures to remember where I’ve been, because even now I want to dye my hair black and so remind myself how long it has taken to get where I am and how my dyed hair didn’t look very good anymore.

6) Cognitive Science for IT Security, (August, 2007)

This one was written for my students when I lectured at Westminster. It is one of my favourite subjects as it involves how we think and technology and how the two don’t always fit together too well. It was the saddest of days when I couldn’t lecture after my daughter was born, not least of all, because when I was ready to return the course had changed and this topic had disappeared because I had made it up and no one else had my unique skill set to teach it.

7) Why my coffee machine is so sexy, (February, 2007)

I have been in love with my coffee machine forever. My husband and I were newly married and were totally broke, and we spent a month’s rent money on this coffee machine which we ordered from a dodgy Italian website which didn’t say anything at all, so we didn’t know if they’d got the money, or if they really existed, or if we’d been ripped off. Ah, the joys of early international Internet shopping.

8) Bad design: Fresenius Applix Smart food pump, (December, 2008)

I took this one down as it attracted a lot of negativity. I talk about it here but I reread it again today and it is a good blog, a solid UX review, and there are comments by people who agree with me which I had forgotten about as I, like most humans, tend to remember the bad stuff more easily. What occurred to me today is that the blog is a demonstration of the medium is the message. People got so focused on the criticisms I had, that they thought I was criticising the purpose of the foodpump which I wasn’t. I thought about putting it back up but then thought again. I would never write another blog like it and I only want to spread positivity.

After this post, and apart from one about augmented and virtual realities and wearables, I didn’t blog again until 2011, and when I did it was about WordPress, this was when I had just finished chemotherapy and was about start radiotherapy and more surgery that I had the energy to think about things – seriously though, would I listen to myself? I had two small children to look after, one who was about to have another big surgery too. I hadn’t slept in years. However, it was important to me to think about technology and people, it’s what I do, it’s what I’ve always done, so I read all of Alan Dix’s TouchIT and took notes so that I could feel more like myself. I lost the notes before I got the chance to put them online, but the experience in itself kept me going, so thank you Alan, for sharing your book-to-be online, it kept me going.

In 2012 I managed to blog about embodiment during chemotherapy and the experience of my daughter’s first day at school, which was really nice. It brought me back to me and helped me remember how I like to write.

9) Katie Hopkins’s #fatstory one year on (January, 2016)

This one is a pop psychology blog about why Katie Hopkins is so mean. It gets hits all the time and is always in my most popular this week. I have no idea why people want to read about her. I guess it is the same reason I needed to write about her. I just wanted to understand why someone would be that mean, which is probably why my blog on Prejudice: The social animal on social media (April 2016) comes in at no 13 on the all time blog hits.

10) Storytelling: Narrative, Databases, and Big Data (April, 2016)

I was asked to lecture the module introduction to databases and the notes were a bit dry so I wrote this blog for my students to let them know that while we were linking together small tables of ten rows, people working with databases have millions and millions of rows to manipulate. Database design is exciting and patterns are where it is at.

11) Bikram: Heat is the way to inner peace March 2015

I love yoga. I started doing yoga when I was 14 years old, and am a trained teacher (of course I am, if there’s a formal way of learning anything, you can count on me to be your most enthusiastic student. Sign me up!). Bikram is just another wonderful variation of this wonderful gift. I love the heat, the sweat, and the way my body feels bending over lots of times in a hot room. I would recommend Bikram to anyone. It is a super hard discipline and never gets any easier, but I love it.

And, I love blogging. I love this space of mine. I write slowly and at great length. I used to have yoast installed which tells you how to make your blogs more SEO friendly, and says basically: 300 words long, H2 headers must have the keyword of the blog in them as the title must too, and you must sprinkle the keyword through the text. Yawn! I switched it off.

I take my time to write my blogs as I am not doing them to impress a search engine. I edit a lot, otherwise I end up with a blog like this one which as I reread it now, is a little disconnected and full of it’s brilliant, I love it. Pressing publish after grappling to understand something I didn’t before is just brilliant and yeah, I love it. I am so grateful to WordPress and Tim Berners-Lee for creating a platform for me to explore what’s on my heart, and for anyone who takes the time to read what I have written. Thank you.

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Maslow’s hierarchy of chakras

chakras pic
Source: montereybayholistic

You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. – Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which he proposed in 1943 is still a popular theory today for explaining human motivation, especially in management. At a first glance, it seems quite similar to the ancient Hindu Chakra system, especially when some of Maslow’s pyramid diagrams are colour coded using the rainbow, rather like the above picture. The chakras were first proposed in the sacred Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, which were orally transmitted since, what seems like, the beginning of time, and were first written down around 1900BC.

Maslow’s theory came from studying people he described as exemplary, or inspirational – people such as Albert Einstein or Eleanor Roosevelt. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi also studied exemplary people and found that these people regularly engage in activities in which they lose themselves to bring about a state of flow, or in meditation terms, they lose themselves in the gap which is where our unbounded consciousness – the space between our thoughts and ego – lie. The gap is the place where we find our pure potential and infinite possibility.

Connecting to Shakti

The chakras are seven energy centres which run from the base of our spines to the top of our heads in our bodies. They are gateways connecting us to the world we live in and beyond to the universal life force known as Shakti, the most magnificent expression of flow, a place of infinite possibility.

We awaken Shakti energy and activate our chakras through meditation. Indeed, the ancient texts have described masters of Shakti being able to meditate during a storm, control nature, and command supernatural powers.

If this sounds rather far fetched, research in neuroscience has shown that meditation can help rewire the neural networks in our brain which in turn reduces the amygdala or lizard brain – the prehistoric part of our brain – where we register emotions such as fear, anger and anxiety, thus the end result makes us feel more at peace and at one with ourselves and the world around us – powerful stuff. We can calm our inner storm and be still when all is not.

And even less esoterically speaking, the chakras are where our nerve endings collect and our blood vessels are concentrated, which affect our hormones, our immune functions, and our vital energy. Focusing in on the chakras and awakening Shakti through meditation can make us feel emotionally balanced or even enlightened. The word enlightenment has many meanings, but one lovely definition from the Buddhist tradition is we become enlightened by knowing ourselves.

Who am I?

When we feel more self-aware and less emotionally agitated, when we sit quietly with ourselves and breathe deeply, it is easier to answer the question: Who am I? A difficult question to answer, perhaps. But, once we tolerate, love, and have compassion for our own dear selves, it is easier to extend tolerance, love, and compassion to others.

Inversely, when we are intolerant of ourselves, we are intolerant of others. Jesus knew this when he said: Love your neighbour as yourself. You cannot love someone if you do not know how to love yourself. You cannot give someone something you do not have, whether this is food and shelter, or love and compassion.

Maslow’s pyramid echoes a similar journey. At the most basic level, our needs are physiological – we need food and shelter, for without them we cannot function and their lack makes us fearful and anxious. Maslow called all four of the bottom needs deficiency needs. Along with food and shelter, we need safety, love, recognition and esteem from others, otherwise we feel deficient, and this makes us strive to find our place in the world. It is only when we are satisfied, and feeling fulfilled can we self-actualise and share that by deed or word.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

No striving only surrender

The main difference between Maslow’s theory and the Chakra system is that Maslow looks outside of us to satisfy needs, to work for our food and shelter, to work for our community and love, to strive. In contrast, the chakras encourage us to look inside to connect to Shakti or flow to meet our needs. There is no striving, only surrender.

When we are at one with all things, we respond and interact. When we are separate, we tend to react and contract. Mahatma Gandhi was aware of this when he said, Be the change you want to see in the world. You can literally change the vibration of your life and what and who goes on around you when you behave differently.

Aligning Maslow’s chakras

Maslow and the chakras contain many similarities, but we need to look inside ourselves, not outside to others to make us feel or be different:

  • Physiological needs such as food, water, and shelter which make humans think of little else are found in the Chakra system at the Root chakra represented as ruby red and the earth,  it is our foundation, it’s mantra is I am;  and the Sacral chakra which is orange and water, it is nourishment, purity, and protection, it’s mantra is I create.
  • Safety needs either personal or job security are found at the Solar plexus chakras represented as yellow and fire. It is our power centre where our emotional and physical fires burn bright with transformation, intention and desire, it’s mantra is I do.
  • Social needs such as belonging to a club or a family, to give and receive love are found in the Heart chakra which is green and air,  it is innocence and pure, a  connection to the infinite, the divine, it’s mantra is  I love.
  • Esteem needs to respect ourselves and have others respect them are at the Throat chakra which is blue and space, it is connection and communication, it’s mantra is I express.
  • Self-actualisation needs are when humans want to do realise their potential, and feel fulfilled, this is seen in the Third eye, or Brow chakra, it is purple and light, it represents clarity and judgment, it’s mantra is I see.
  • Transcendance needs were added by Maslow later on, and aren’t shown in the pyramid above. However, they correspond to the Crown chakra at the top of head, otherwise known as the thousand petal lotus, it is ultraviolet or white,  it is about connecting to source, to feel unity with the great consciousness, it’s mantra is I understand.

The secret of eternal youth

People who have awakened or connected to Shakti tend to be constantly evolving and expanding. They are energetic and are often described as young or youthful. It is easy to lose this expansion and delight with life, as we grow older and, I think this is why we are culturally obsessed with youth. Our young constantly evolve and expand, they are full of potential and promise, unlike the older members of our society who have had responsibility and routine creep in, making their potential and promise options seem fewer.

However, it is not too late. It is possible to reclaim that promise if we surrender to the flow, to that divine Shakti energy, and remember our desires,  which we are told in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad can lead to our destiny.

 You’re never too old, never too bad, never too late and never too sick to start from scratch once again. – Bikram Choudhury

Let’s dive deep and reconnect to our driving desires.

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Yoga Lessons: A year in front of Bikram’s mirrors

the 26 Bikram yoga poses

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. – Lao Tzu

When I first turned up to Bikram, I couldn’t believe that I would have to look at myself in a mirror for 90 minutes whilst I got hot, sweaty, and contorted myself into various positions.

I have always preferred my yoga super quiet with the lights down low because that is the only way I thought I would be able to concentrate on me. However, nearly a year on, from when I first committed to doing Bikram yoga, I now see that having mirrors in the yoga studio is genius.

Acceptance

To stand in front of a mirror and to truly accept myself exactly as I am and not cringe, not feel embarrassed and not want to change anything about my own dear self, is the first step, and could well be the only step, to inner peace.

I have a lot of grey hair which I have been covering up for years, but six months into my practice I stood on my mat one day and looked at my hair and asked myself why. Why am I pretending my hair isn’t grey? I am not 20 years old – well I had grey hair then too (but that’s another story). Why do I need to look the way I did when I was 20?

Then, a couple of months ago I swapped my t-shirt for a yoga bra which allowed me to gaze upon my midriff in an act of unbelievable not me-ness, because I have always thought of myself and my midriff as an Egyptian scribe.

In Egyptian times, only scribes could write and were well paid for their services, consequently they had prosperous rolls which would be on display in the market place as they sat doing their job. Nowadays we tend not to admire prosperous rolls so much, which is one thing, so to get them out in public and look at them without judgement, well that is another thing altogether.

It has also been a good way of seeing whether I really am following the script’s command of suck in that stomach which one teacher then followed up with basically forever, which makes me laugh even now. And, I have learnt to take that off the mat and do it wherever I go. It is a way of standing up taller and taking up the space that I am entitled to, which us women sometimes are unable to do (and is a whole blog in itself, coming soon). Of course, now that I have engaged with that part of my body, admired my prosperous roles, sucked it in (or mula bandha-ed it), my core is stronger, which makes me admire that strength and that part of my body in a way I never did before.

Letting go

At certain points in class the teacher might advise me, and everyone else, to let go of the mirrors, because sometimes I need to bend right back and trust my body. Also, sometimes when I am trying to attain a position, I am striking a pose instead of feeling what is going on in my body. And, some of the 26 poses especially in the standing series are very cool and very dramatic, and getting into them and doing them well is pretty fantastic. However, it is not about the glory of the pose, as one fabulous teacher puts it, it is about the shift taking place inside and it is about going to my edge – the area just outside my comfort zone – these things are not reflected in the mirror at all, so I have to let go of the mirrors to look inside.

Sometimes, a teacher might tell us to just let go, which is all powerful, all encompassing. I might have done a great pose, or I might have not quite managed it, but either way it is over now. I have to let it go to give myself the mental space and energy to do the next thing. In the same way off the mat, I have to let go of the thing I wish I had said, or hadn’t said, or the kindness or unkindness I did or didn’t do. That moment has gone. I have to let it all go. I am in a brand new moment which is the only moment I have. I only have the now.

Only what you are not giving can be lacking in any situation – A course in miracles

One day I was doing my usual thing of what I now call mental bartering, which sounds like this: If I do this pose, then I can have a rest, and miss the next one out, and do the one after and then I will a lie down and I will look like I am trying. It was a long monologue in my mind mainly about how hot, how tired, and how I wished I was anywhere else but in the studio. Then the teacher said: Pick up your foot, which I am guessing no one did, who knows for sure, I was busy talking to myself. And then she said: Just pick it up. Don’t think about it, just pick it up, and, she made us practice picking up the foot. It was a revelation. I became free. I had not been giving my full attention to the script and that was what was missing, I was busy mentally hoarding my energy, but by giving it up – the energy, the thoughts, the bartering – and giving my all to that moment, instead of spending all my energy, the act of giving up seemed to free up infinite energy. I picked up my foot in that moment, and every moment afterwards and I was and I remain gloriously free. When I am spent and have nothing else to give, I lean in, and trust that the momentum of picking up my foot will carry me further and create anything I desire.

I picked up my foot: Dandayamana Janushirasana (Standing Head to Knee)

Taking this off the mat, in the moments when I feel afraid, when it feels, for example, like someone not giving me what I need, instead of getting angry and aggressive, I can lean in, and listen to that person, or to myself and ask: What is missing? It is not easy, and I am not always successful. However, this is what I have learnt: If I am looking to someone else for something, it is that I believe that I will feel better in the having of the something that someone has to offer. But that is just not be true. I have everything I need. I don’t need anyone else to make anything better for me. No one else is in charge of my happiness.

No one else can pick up my foot. No one else can stop the monologue in my head. No one else can listen to the script for me.  It’s me who needs to give that which is missing, either to the situation, to the other person, or to myself, and then let the momentum of the giving create the very thing I desire.

To stand in someone else’s shoes you have to stand in your own shoes first – Pema Chödrön

Bikram’s mirrors are like life itself, it mirrors me. I am embodied so I see and interpret the world in terms of myself and my past experiences. I thought I needed silence and the lights down low to do yoga to concentrate on myself, because that was how I had learnt to do yoga, and where I got the best results. However, I have since learnt that there is nowhere better than when the heat is on and the lights are bright to connect with myself. To look at myself openly and honestly, with compassion and acceptance, and to take that off the mat and into my daily life, well that has been the greatest gift that practising Bikram yoga has given me, and I know, I have only scratched the surface.

Namaste!