Fear: It's Not Just For Breakfast, Anymore...

...a friend showed me a yoga prop with colorful lettering along its side....it read: do one thing a day that scares you....I said getting out of bed scares me....mission accomplished...

It is because a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got. He’ll cling to trouble he’s used to before he’ll risk a change.
Byron Bunch (William Faulkner, Light in August)

...there’s a popular new and old agey belief about fear...that it’s a bad thing...that, with the right attitude, everything will be okay, so fear is something purely negative, to be overcome....obviously, anyone who thinks that way doesn’t get around a city by bicycle...

...to be an urban cyclist is to have a healthy relationship with fear...to see it as your friend...not your boss, your friend...to listen to, argue with, sometimes respectfully ignore...knowing that it’s there to keep you safe, but you never wanna be too safe...


...and when do you think it will all become clear?
‘cause I’m bein’ taken over by the fear...
Lily Allen

...one thing most people fear is being seen naked...figuratively speaking...(as well as literally)...I see this with yoga teachers, sometimes...acting so blissed out, so overwhelmingly positive, so damned spiritual you wonder how they deal with mundane earthly matters like paying bills or getting the toilet fixed....nice, I think, listening to another fake Rumi quote...(made up, most likely, by some anonymous greeting card company employee)...while transitioning from chaturanga to upward-facing dog, but not someone I’d likely wanna hang out with away from class...but then I run into the teacher in a coffee shop or bar and find a perfectly down to earth person with a snarky sense of humor, who's actually a lot of fun to talk to, once that bogus yoga teacher mask is off...

One day you’ll wake up in the present day,
a million generations removed from expectations
of being who you really want to be...
Ian Anderson

...met a woman who grew up in Poland in the 20’s and 30’s, and, years later, came to the United States...though Jewish, she spent the years of World War II working in a factory in Germany, having, somehow, obtained "fake papers" that identified her as a gentile...and so lived, year after hard year, hiding behind a false identity, knowing she’d be sent to her death if anyone found out who she really was....(when the war was over, she went back home, thinking to find at least someone from her previous life, but every last one had been killed)....

...thankfully, most of us don’t have to live under circumstances like that....though we might act like it, sometimes...


* note: the bike and car in the picture are both mine...no sentient beings were harmed in the production of this blog post...*

Practicing Yoga for the Wrong Reasons? Who the Hell Cares?

Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1.2

Some come to laugh their pasts away,
Some come to make it just one more day...
Robert Hunter

Everything’s cool as long as I’m getting thinner...
Lily Allen

One night a week, I work at a residential rehab for women coming from the most challenging backgrounds—long-term addiction, rape, prostitution, poverty, prison, childhood incest, loss of children, every imaginable kind of abuse. I bring my expertise in reading and writing, in hopes that they’ll get their GED’s, maybe go back to school, or simply learn to narrate their experiences in writing; they bring PhD’s in suffering.

I feel particular admiration for some of the older women, those most scarred and humbled. As bad as life can get—the stuff of nightmares that leave us shaking in our beds, afraid of falling asleep again—they’ve been there. They’ve known Hell, and what it’s like to claw their way out, only to slip and tumble backwards into the depths, again and again and again. And yet, here they are, still trying.

Then there are some of the younger women—still vibrant and cute enough to hide their scars, and still naive enough to think they can run away from it all, there because it beats jail; the older clients say they haven’t hit bottom yet. Often, as I arrive, many of the clients are on their way out the door, heading to a weekly outside meeting—a twelve-step group beyond the confines of residential rehab, allowing them to incorporate their experiences of recovery within that sequestered world with those of people on the outside...many of whom are men. While everyone, generally, cleans up a bit for the outside meetings—hair done, a little mascara, a skirt in place of sweatpants, maybe a touch of jewelry—a few of the younger clients take it a bit further: wearing thick layers of makeup, low cut blouses, jeans tight enough I wonder they don’t cut off circulation. One put on thigh high black leather boots with stiletto heels, fishnet stockings beneath a short leather skirt and bustier week after week, resisting the entreaties of staff members to the effect that this really wasn’t appropriate for Narcotics Anonymous.

But, though their attitudes seem be blatantly off, though they may be missing the point, though their dressed-up-get-messed-up choices in couture might be a complete mockery of the well-established values of twelve-step programs and recovery itself, they keep going. They’re encouraged to. And there’s a reason for that. Whether they realize it or not, they need help—badly, and such resistance only serves to put that need into stark relief. And it may be that in these meetings they attend for, apparently, all the wrong reasons, they will, in spite of themselves, find the help they need. It’s better to be there with the wrong attitude, in other words, than not to be there at all.

Meanwhile, the serious yoga world’s full of outrage that so many people see yoga as a means of getting a firm butt...or to show off one’s firm butt in the latest designer yoga clothing and compare said butt and clothing with those of others in the room...or to enjoy other peoples’ firm butts so tightly wrapped in that expensive stretchy stuff. The women at the rehab, from what I've seen, appear to see morning yoga as an excuse to go outside and smoke cigarettes.

That’s cool with me. They might learn something and it might help them, in spite of themselves...