Finding Strength in Vulnerability

“My ineptitude makes me good at what I do.”  This was the astonishing claim made in 2005 by author Studs Terkel in an interview with Nightline’s Ted Kopple. He went on to explain that he really couldn’t do much of anything very well like fix things, sing, dance, or play sports. All he was really good at he said was listening, making him the great interviewer and storyteller that he was. Here, on national television, was a 93-year-old icon comfortable enough in his own skin to admit that he was not good at very much. Sharing his vulnerability not only made him lovable, it showed strength of character.

Some of us hide our vulnerability behind our skills and competencies, our achievements and our talents. We do this because we equate being vulnerable with being weak. We fear that if we are open and authentic enough to admit to a personal lack or limitation that we’ve opened ourselves to attack from others.

Vulnerability is not for the weak hearted. It requires deep inner strength to admit what you don’t know, what you can’t do well, what scares you, and what hurts you. It was clear that Studs Terkel inhabited his vulnerability from an awareness of his own strengths even though he started out by describing himself as inept.

How do we develop the strength to stand in our vulnerability? On our yoga mats we learn to honor it. When we embrace vulnerability wholeheartedly we discover a strength we did not know we had. As we attempt to do a posture that seems impossible or scary, once we set aside our ego, and stop struggling to get it right, we surprise ourselves and nail a pose we’ve never done before. We discover that accepting our vulnerability helps us create a boundary. We don’t push too hard, or go too far, which keeps us safe.

In our lives off the yoga mat we fear being vulnerable because we fear being hurt, let down, disappointed, or rejected. An aversion to unpleasant feelings can cause us to defend ourselves against feeling physical or emotional pain. Sometimes we distract ourselves from unwanted feelings by trying to be certain of the uncertain, trying to be perfect, or by acting as if we don’t care. We might dull our senses with comfort food, alcohol, gambling, drugs (illegal and prescription), television, work, video games, computers, and smart phones.

But numbing yourself to the discomfort of your vulnerability does more than dull the sting of unpleasant emotions. You actually put your self at a disadvantage by robbing yourself of the ability to ask for and receive the support you need. Ironically, by avoiding our vulnerability, we actually make ourselves weak.

Cynthia had a boss intent on setting her up to fail at a job she loved, needed, and was good at. As long as she pretended she could overcome his mistreatment by trying harder, asking him for feedback, or when that didn’t work, feigning indifference, she was helpless to do anything about her predicament. The first thing she had to do was recognize that she was under attack through no fault of her own. She was doing nothing wrong. Next she had to stop looking to her boss for approval and instead identify her strengths. Once she became more self-confident her boss’s attempts to undermine her became ineffective.  She started asking for help from those who were willing and able to give it. Eventually she left the job, but on her own terms. She quickly found a work environment that appreciated her for her gifts and talents.

Ultimately, nothing can protect you from the vulnerability of human life. When you stop avoiding your own vulnerability you risk hurt and disappointment, but you receive the gifts that flow forth from a place of open heartedness: Kindness, forgiveness, love, generosity, empathy, and support.

Approach the joys, challenges, and disappointments of life with a full heart. Be first to say, “I love you.” Invest in a relationship even if there’s no guarantee of reciprocation. Ask for help when you’re ill, out of money, or need a place to live. Apologize when you’ve hurt someone’s feelings. Cry when you’re sad. Initiate getting together with friends. Or, like Studs Terkel, admit your ineptitude.

In this new year, challenge yourself to step more fully into your vulnerability.

• Ask your husband to take you to your doctor’s appointment if you’re afraid to go by yourself.

• Invite friends over for dinner instead of waiting for one of them to invite you.

• Apologize instead of defending yourself when you know you’ve hurt someone’s feeings.

• Return that phone call you’ve been putting off for fear you might get bad news.

• Offer your gifts and talents freely. Share them publicly.

Being vulnerable can be scary, but it’s never dangerous. When you find the courage to go deep into your vulnerability you’ll realize how safe it actually is. But no explaining can trump the experience. Take a leap of faith. Take the first step.

The Greatest Gift

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you just wanted someone to say they’re sorry? You were over what had happened and ready to move forward – but you just needed to hear those two little words.

But life doesn’t always work the way we’d like. The one who hurts you may not see it the way you do and may not offer an apology. As Elton John puts it “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” So in the absence of an apology, how do you forgive and move on? Do you abandon the relationship? If so when? Do you maintain the relationship? If so how? When someone does apologize, how do you forgive? And should you?

Before you can answers these questions you have to stop blaming the person who hurt you. Being stuck in the argument of who is right and who is wrong will not heal the wound of betrayal.

I am reminded of a couple I counseled. I’ll call them Brittany and Ron. They had been married for seven years when Ron had an affair. Brittany was devastated but decided to stay in the relationship. However she decided not to forgive Ron. She felt wronged and was committed to punishing him for his offense every opportunity she had. Ron, on the other hand, never apologized for hurting her and just kept defending himself by saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Finally Brittany began to realize how much effort she was putting into trying to hurt Ron as much as he had hurt her. Their relationship was becoming nearly intolerable.  She was becoming unhappier by the day. Brittany began to realize that by trying to hurt Ron, she was punishing herself; she was taking the poison and waiting for him to die.

Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is a choice. It is a willingness to give back to the person who has hurt you what you gave before the hurt occurred. That could be friendship, affection, the benefit of the doubt, a hug, a kiss, kind words, or whatever it is you have withdrawn to protect yourself.

Forgiveness is a practice and a process, not an outcome. It doesn’t mean “putting the past behind you and moving on”. It means that you commit to working on improving your relationship by engaging in behaviors that will heal the wounds that hurt and betrayal have caused.

Brittany came to realize what she needed to do. Instead of waiting for Ron to apologize, or for her feelings to change, she began to engage in actions that were forgiving. She decided to start by giving him back a smile when she greeted him. Eventually she began to sit next to him on the couch when they watched TV. Later she added a goodnight kiss before bed. She didn’t always feel like doing these actions, but she saw them as medicine that could heal the relationship. Once he was no longer under constant attack, Ron stopped defending himself and admitted to Brittany that he knew his actions had caused great harm to her and had damaged their relationship. He began making amends for his behavior to try and repair the damage he had caused through his infidelity.

Not all acts of forgiveness result in reconciliation. Sometimes relationships end in spite of our willingness to forgive. But when we regard forgiveness as an action, not a feeling, the power is in our hands to give back what was there before the damage was done. We don’t have to wait for an apology or for our feelings to change.

Forgiveness applies to the big stuff, such as betrayal and infidelity, and the little stuff like a hurtful comment, a forgotten birthday, or a public embarrassment. Here’s the question about forgiveness: Will you choose it? And then, will you do it? The willingness to forgive can create something very powerful. It can renew depth, intimacy, and new possibility in all your relationships. It is the perfect gift during this season of giving.

The Gift of Forgiving

1. Make a list of people you would like to forgive or create a new relationship with.  Put yourself first.
2. Identify what it is you think you or the other person has done wrong.
3. Allow yourself to feel the regret, remorse, and sorrow that follow.
4. Going forward, make a sincere promise to avoid being hurtful to yourself or the person who has hurt you.
5. If you, or the other person make a mistake and do it again, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start the process of forgiving all over again.

The act of forgiveness is like stepping onto your yoga mat.  Some days you just don’t feel like it but you do it anyway and end up feeling better.  The same is true with forgiveness.  Some days you just don’t feel like it.  But do it anyway.

Make forgiveness a habit of your heart. Holding a grudge is way overrated.

The Sweet Life

Have you ever noticed how some people, no matter how brightly the sun is shining in November, will find the one cloud in the sky and start forecasting the ice storm that’s sure to come in February?

Okay–if you’re from Michigan, you get a pass. Here, in the land of the really long winters, you can’t blame us for getting a head start on our worrying!

The folks I’m talking about are the ones who love to complain about what a nightmare it was when the barista at Starbucks ruined their latte, how Uncle Joe rooked them out of “their” inheritance, or why some unknown road rager flipping them the bird on the freeway on the way to work ruined their day.  No matter how well life may be treating them, they will find the one thing that’s wrong and dwell on it like it’s the only thing that’s ever happened, and like they are the only one it ever happened to.

I had an aunt like that.  To be fair, she was funny, warm, and loving, but no one could top her in the negativity department.  She once asked me, “Why aren’t you bitter?”  The question surprised me but I thought about it and said, “Because I can’t stand how it feels.” “Humph!” she said.  “I wish I could feel that way, but it’s just too &%+#@ hard.”

I always wondered why it is we tend to remember the one bad thing that happens to us and ignore the good stuff.  You know, like being miserable about the one person who fell asleep in the middle of your presentation even though everyone else was paying really close attention.

The conversation with my aunt gave me some insight.  It helped me realize that negativity is actually a choice…a choice we make when being positive seems just too *&%#@ hard.  It helped me understand that one of the reasons we are so sensitive to hurt and pain is because we give it so much of our attention.

The problem comes when we are more attuned to the hurt and pain than to the love and kindness that exist inside us and around us.  Many of us begin to accept hurt and pain as the norm. That’s when the joy that is our natural state of being fades into the background. We get into the habit of complaining about what’s wrong. Since what we focus on expands, complaining becomes our default mode.

So how do we make joyfulness, love, and harmony our foreground? We have to be intentional.  We have to focus on these qualities and practice them mindfully. We have to refuse to live with the burden of negativity.  Once we become conscious of how good it feels to be positive, we want more. The catch is it doesn’t just happen.  In order to feel good, we have to engage in practices that might at times seem too *&%#@ hard. But like a garden that goes unattended and becomes overtaken by weeds and other critters, our consciousness unattended can become infested with negative thoughts that crowd out our good ones.

Cultivating positive thoughts, words, and actions takes effort. The good news is you don’t have to go outside yourself to find these positive qualities; you  already possess them. They are already a part of you.  Your work is to tune in to their existence and get good at them.

My aunt was one of the funniest, most unconditionally loving, and generous people I have ever known. But because she was stuck in negative thought patterns she was unable to avoid the bitterness that is a natural consequence of habitual negative thinking.  When we attune ourselves to what is joyful, loving and harmonious, we can avoid the pain that negativity brings.

Spend some time this month practicing becoming more conscious of your loving nature.  Notice what brings you joy.  Make being in harmony with nature, yourself, and with others a habit.

1.  At the end of each day, write down one thing that made you happy.  It can be as simple as “someone smiled at me” or better yet, “I smiled at someone.”

2.  Each day tell someone in your life something you appreciate about them. It can be a family member, a co-worker or even the clerk at the grocery store who takes the time to greet you each time you walk in.

3.  Once a day give yourself a compliment and write down one thing you appreciate about yourself.

4.  And at some point during every day, say the following affirmation:  “I love and approve of myself.”  You don’t have to believe it.  Just say it each day or several times a day for one month and notice the difference it makes.

5.  Meditate everyday.

Instead of focusing on what’s going wrong, make the effort to acknowledge and celebrate what’s working in your life and in the lives of those around you.  Make being positive your default mode so you can savor the sweetness life has to offer.

Just Say Yes

One morning not long ago, I indulged myself and instead of cinnamon raisin oatmeal and herbal tea I had a strong hot cup of coffee with sugar and cream and a slice of pecan pie for breakfast.

Yes, you read that right. I had PECAN PIE for BREAKFAST.

I had just returned from one of Maya Breuer’s amazing Yoga Retreats for Women of Color™ in the Appalachian Mountains. Twenty women of color — including one who came all the way from London England — spent the weekend practicing yoga and reconnecting with ancestral memories by sharing personal stories from our past. Some memories were joyful, others painful — but with every recollection each one of us released emotional blocks that were interfering with desire, purpose, and creativity.

I’m pretty certain it was that experience that made the call of pecan pie one that I couldn’t ignore. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy cinnamon raisin oatmeal and herbal tea for breakfast too, but what nourished my soul and spirit that day was a slice of sweet, gooey, sticky, pecan pie.  This was about more than my taste buds.  Eating it felt like a direct connection to my mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother.  Pie for breakfast in our house was a rare treat that spoke directly to my heart.  I felt loved. There is nothing more nourishing to the heart and soul than connecting to your roots with real live comfort food like pecan pie. So that day I just said Yes!

Which brings me to the point of this blog post. I have been practicing Anusara Yoga for about 10 years, which has been referred to as the “Yoga of Yes.” It got me to wondering; when I say yes, what I am saying yes to, my body, my mind, my heart, my soul, my resistance,  or my fear? How do I know if what I’m saying yes to is in my best interest?

I remember when I was a little girl my parents used to tease me and call me the “Gimmee Girl” because when I saw something I wanted, I’d ask for it – didn’t usually get it- but always asked. Over time I became self-conscious about asking because there was always a hint of criticism in the nickname they gave me. I was never sure what was wrong with asking, but I learned to be less spontaneous and more hesitant about giving voice to my desires.

As I matured and observed how life works, I came to realize that desire is normal and natural, but when we ask for what is not being offered, or when we ask for too much, we are misaligned. When we ask for a boon that cannot be granted, we create pain and suffering for ourselves and for the person we are asking it from. Don’t you hate it when someone asks you for what you can’t give? I learned this lesson from my parents and nature, too: Nature gives us what it can offer, not what we want. When there is a misalignment it is between what you want and what is being offered. I began to understand what my mother meant when she cautioned, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

But desire is not a bad thing. The Divine resides within our desire. Our desire is actually where our power exists. It is what drives us. We succeed when we follow our nature to our deepest desire. When we take our passion and make it a vehicle of our growth, we succeed. When a person deeply desires something, all the world conspires to help that person realize her dream.

Resistance to desire feeds on fear of the consequences of following your heart. But if you give in to your fear, you won’t be able to talk to your heart, which is where desire lives. I have noticed that what makes it impossible to say yes to your deepest heart’s desire is not, as you might suspect, your fear of failure; rather, it is your fear of success…fear that you actually have the ability to access the talents and gifts you secretly know that you possess, the gifts that make you uniquely you. Claiming our uniqueness scares us because in doing so, we become someone other than the person we have been socialized to be. Instead, we wear the mask of conformity in an attempt to live up to others’ expectations. We worry that if we remove the mask we will lose friends and family, who might no longer recognize us.

These fears are not totally unfounded. I’m thinking of the people I know who have walked away from what appeared to be great relationships, lucrative careers, and prestigious educational opportunities to pursue what their hearts asked of them. Some lost money, others lost status, and some lost the approval of significant others. What they reclaimed was their souls.

Here are three practices that will help you find clarity about the question of whether what you are saying yes to is in your best interest.

The first is the discipline of nourishing your body. I remember once asking my yoga teacher if she thought people lose energy as they get older. She paused for a moment before answering. Then she said, “I think if you feel as though you are losing energy you should ask yourself,  ‘How much sleep am I getting? What kinds of food am I eating? When do I eat my meals? How much caffeine and/or alcohol am I consuming? What kinds of physical activity do I engage in?’ Then make the necessary adjustments that will support a healthy more energetic body.”

The second is the discipline of nourishing your soul. Psychology actually means the study of the soul even though it has never actually been that. Nourishing the soul requires self-reflection and a willingness to align with a whole lot of love, understanding, compassion, a little James Brown, and every now and then a slice of pecan pie for breakfast when it’s called for.

The third is the willingness to pursue your deepest desire for it’s own sake, not for fame, fortune, or standing ovations. In other words, do the best you can in pursuing and manifesting your desires and surrender the rest to God, remembering that no effort goes unrewarded.

A final piece of advice: When you make friends with your soul it will not betray you and you will not betray it. Make friends with your soul and you stand a pretty good chance of realizing your deepest heart’s desires. Knowing that may help you feel more confident about just saying yes.

 

 

You Already Are Who You’re Trying To Become

“What if there is no need to change, no need to try to transform yourself into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise? What if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you already are in your essential nature – gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present? What if the essence of who you are and always have been is enough?” - Oriah

One well-known definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. I have come to regard the search for perfection as one example of this kind of insanity.  I have always been suspicious of perfection, preferring instead a full life to a perfect one, and yet I have often found myself in search of this elusive quality.  On the yoga mat it’s possible to do the form of a posture without being in optimal alignment. The pose can look great to an observer and even feel great for a while. But as long as we remain on the surface level of awareness focused on how good something looks, or “nailing” a pose perfectly without paying attention to alignment, we risk misalignment which will eventually manifest as an injury. When we are focused on doing something perfectly we fail to honor our unique human limitations.  We can stretch beyond our appropriate limits and suffer the consequences emotionally and physically.  In order to have a full experience we have to go deeper than the search for perfection and grasp that in our essence we are already enough.  This applies both on and off the mat.

Another less well known definition of insanity is “the extent to which you are trying to be someone you are not.” The Bhagavad-Gita teaches that it is better to be mediocre in your own dharma than to excel in someone else’s. Another way of putting it: you already are who you are trying to become. You’ve always been the person you are becoming, so get to know yourself in all your resplendent uniqueness and get good at being you. It is a misalignment to try to be someone or something you are not. Doing so will inevitably result  in injury physically, psychologically, or more profoundly to your soul.

We feel good when we align with our most exquisite qualities within.  We don’t need to go outside ourselves to discover our wisdom, our beauty, our talent, or our knowledge. Everything is full and complete in its essence, in its potential. We want to open to the thought of our fullness and completeness in every aspect of our being and give up the search for perfection.

A seed holds within itself the potential of being itself. It cannot become what it is not. If planted in rich soil and given the optimal conditions for growth, a rose seed will not blossom into a lotus no matter how much it may want to or how hard it tries. It can only fulfill the potential of its own “is-ness” – its own being.

Like the rose or the lotus you can only become who you already are. You can only fulfill your own potential. You cannot fulfill someone else’s no matter how many self-help books you read, personal growth seminars you sign up for, psychotherapists you see, or yoga classes you attend. You already are who you’re trying to become. This does not mean you should not aspire to grow. It does mean you should aspire to be clear that the answers to who you are lie deep within your own being, not outside of yourself. Optimal growth constitutes going deeper into yourself to become more of who you already are, not someone or something different or better than you are.

We must learn to trust our potential to fulfill itself in us as us. According to Tantric scholar Dr. Douglas Brooks, you are the point the universe is trying to make. So our work is to turn within to the highest level of consciousness in our own being. The journey is not an outward-bound quest, but is about realizing our deepest nature and trusting the wisdom of the Universe to fulfill itself through us.

Who you are is much more than personality or personal circumstance. Who you are is an expression of the creative principle that governs all life. In our search for perfection we tend to look outside ourselves to discover our purpose, our potential, our destiny. As a result, we find ourselves fulfilling a destiny of our own limited thinking that we have chosen for ourselves, or a destiny that circumstances have thrust upon us.

The world needs more of who you are, not less. Accepting your potential for being who you already are is not a limitation. On the contrary, stepping more fully into who you already are opens the possibility of becoming even more of you and with it the promise of a fulfilling if not a perfect life.

 

Embrace the Unknown

Life is filled with mystery. As the Tantric scholar Douglas Brooks reminds us, for everything you know there will always be three quarters more that you don’t know.  We can skate on the surface of life and regard all that we don’t know as a problem to be solved and do everything to be informed and in control.  But if we want to become people of depth and compassion, we must be willing to embrace the mystery – to face the unknown – our own ignorance of what’s coming.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I anticipate the unknown with fear. I can scare the hell out of myself by imagining the worst possible outcome of any situation.  The worst is when I indulge in this preoccupation of self-terrorism with a vengeance and then wonder why I feel so anxious.  For comfort, I remind myself of something I once read in a research study citing that 90 percent of what we fear never happens.  Whew!  That’s a relief.  Fortunately I am able to block the part of me that then wants to imagine that my fears could be the 10 percent that actually do occur. I don’t know if it’s a natural or a learned response to imagine the worst and to wait for the other shoe to drop, but I suspect this thought process involves a little bit of both.

To borrow a phrase from Oprah, “What I know for sure” is that as uncomfortable as it can be to experience, fear can be a great friend.  When you receive your fear as a friend you recognize it as a reminder to keep yourself safe.  For example, mountain climbers welcome a healthy dose of fear in anticipation of a dangerous trek.  Fear is welcomed as a companion.  When we treat fear as an enemy or decide it’s unimportant, we have a different experience.  When we avoid fear or are repelled by it, we can become filled with dread.  Fearing our fear  can be paralyzing.

When we fear the unknown we risk becoming limited, dogmatic, fundamentalist thinkers. So the question is, in an attempt to keep ourselves safe, do we cultivate an attitude of anticipating the unknown with fear (OMG what if…?), or should we cultivate an attitude of anticipating the unknown with trust that the Universe has something wonderful in store for us?  Even though I am not always able to do it, I vote for the latter.

One of the reasons I love yoga as much as I do is because it invites you to experience principles of well being through the physical practice of asana, making it easier to access wisdom teachings.  The teachings are no longer abstract once I experience them in my body.  So I want to try to describe to you how I experienced moving into the unknown and joyfully embracing the mystery through a yoga practice.

One of my beloved and amazingly astute yoga teachers taught a class whose theme was to embrace the unknown with humility, trusting that the Universal has wisdom that our limited selves can never possess.  In her wisdom she advised us to be patient with the process.  In this particular class the teacher invited me to demonstrate a pose without telling me what it was going to be…she just talked me through it.

Without me knowing where we were headed, she instructed me into a familiar, but challenging pose. For the uninitiated, in Sanskrit the pose is called Vashistasana, In English it is called side plank pose.  For those of you who do not practice yoga, I’ve included an illustration above.  From this posture, which in and of it self can be quite challenging, without telling me what was coming or what she expected, the teacher  instructed me into full splits…also very challenging. But let me back up.  Once I was in the side plank pose I thought I was finished.  I started to relax and then came a moment of awareness on my part that she was leading me somewhere else that I had not anticipated.  I almost lost my balance, until I regrouped, maintained awareness and went where she asked me to go – into the unknown.  There was a moment of hesitation (the fear) and along with it the temptation to take matters into my own hands and do what I imagined she was going to tell me to do.  But instead of listening to the voice in my head, who thinks it knows everything, I chose trust in the unknown, found my balance, did what I was guided to do and found myself in a most unexpected place…full splits, or, in yoga speak  Hanumanasana, and in full joy.

My take-away from this was that if we shift our focus from listening to the voice in our head, you know the one that knows everything or thinks it should, and instead tune in to our inner guidance system, we can navigate the unknown with greater ease.  This requires a willingness to give up our own agendas and instead follow the signs, which open a way into the sacred. To do this requires a profound openness of mind and heart; an attitude of non-attachment in which we resist the temptation to cling to our own point of view.  It requires a willingness to embrace our own ignorance.  To do this we must trust there is a greater intelligence at work that we can align with that will take us to places  we would never be able to go on our own.

I have found this wisdom applies on the mat and off the mat as well.  Practice embracing the unknown with an open mind and heart and experience the joy that follows.

 

Live Life With HEART

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the purpose of life is spiritual growth and learning about loving; that our mission is to co-create a world with more love and compassion in it, to establish a norm of love in all our interactions, starting with ourselves.

In yoga there is a great deal of emphasis on opening our hearts. Back bending postures are the most effective way to accomplish this. Through our practice of asana on the mat we learn the technology of back bending and keep our bodies safe by following certain principles of alignment. We learn the importance of engaging muscle strength to balance our stretching efforts to protect ourselves from injury. As challenging as remaining safe in heart opening back bends can be on the mat, I think keeping our hearts open and safe is an even greater challenge off the mat.

In order to approach life with an open heart we need to feel psychologically and emotionally safe. Vulnerability without safety leads to injury. The heart’s built-in intelligence causes it to contract and protect itself if it does not feel safe. So how do we create emotional and psychological safety as we invite our hearts to remain open, even in the face of great challenge–including heartbreak? In order to feel safe enough to remain open-hearted off the yoga mat we need to create an internally safe environment by practicing principles of alignment that keep us emotionally and psychologically safe.

What comes to mind is a book I used when I taught executives at the University of Michigan Business School called “Managing From the Heart” by Bracey, Rosenblum, Sanford, and Trueblood. It tells the story of Harry, a financially successful businessman, who is more concerned about the bottom line of his company than he is about treating his employees with care and respect. He suffers a heart attack and in the liminal state between life and death is instructed by an angel to follow five principles of caring for and about others. If he agrees to follow these principles he will be given a second chance at life. Though skeptical and somewhat resistant, Harry accepts the challenge in order to gain that second chance. Once he accepts the challenge, he regains consciousness and even before he leaves the hospital begins to practice these five principles of love and caring that become the norm in his interactions with others.

Hear and understand me.

Even if you disagree with me, please don’t make me wrong.

Acknowledge the greatness within me.

Remember to look for my loving intentions.

Tell me the truth with compassion.

In the story Harry applied these five principles effectively in his interactions with his employees to create a more emotionally and psychologically safe, caring, and loving work environment. But these are also principles you can use when you relate to yourself.  Just imagine how life might change for you and those around you if you applied these five principles of emotional and psychological safety to your own internal dialogue … if you managed yourself from your heart.

Hear and understand me.
Just as others need to feel heard and understood, you need to feel heard and understood, too. It starts with you. When you listen to yourself with an attitude of understanding you hear yourself more clearly, are more likely to take actions that serve you well, and are more likely to feel understood and listened to by others.

Even if you disagree with me please don’t make me wrong.
No one likes to be invalidated or have his or her worth questioned, which is what happens when you criticize someone for being wrong. They usually become defensive and communication stops. The same thing happens when you treat yourself this way. How often do you get into arguments with yourself about what you’re thinking, feeling, doing? What kind of inner turmoil do you think you create for yourself when you disagree with yourself and tell yourself how wrong you are? Notice when you do this how you shut down.  What if instead of habitually criticizing yourself you contemplated the possibility that  ”I’m not doing anything wrong”?

Acknowledge the greatness within me.
Everyone has the potential to grow.  We tend to respond positively to people who address our potential greatness. When you acknowledge your own potential for growth and greatness, you become your own cheerleader, your own safe place to land, and you enhance your capacity for growth and greatness.

Remember to look for my loving intentions.
Give yourself the benefit of the doubt that your intention is to make things better. This even applies when you make a mistake. When you make mistakes or come up with an idea that others may not fully understand or appreciate, are you willing to give yourself the benefit of the doubt and trust that your intention is really to make things better?

Tell yourself the truth with compassion.
Are you caring and respectful when you talk to yourself? Do you apply the principles of right speech to your internal dialogue about yourself? Before shaming, blaming, or criticizing yourself, do you ask yourself these three questions: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?  If the answer to any of these three questions is no, why tell yourself these things at all?  Change the internal dialogue.

Give yourself a second chance at life. Make a commitment to become an emotionally and psychologically safe person. Apply these principles to yourself first and applying them to others will become second nature. When you live your life with HEART you’ll like yourself a lot more and others will like you more, too.

The Boundless Boundary

Lately I have been contemplating the relationship between boundary and freedom. One of the first lessons I learned in yoga is that freedom without boundary results in chaos and boundary without freedom leads to rigidity. One without the other creates imbalance.

Like a child, dependent on parents to teach appropriate boundaries, when I first began to practice yoga I did not have fully developed boundary systems and had to rely on my teachers and other experienced practitioners to protect me. I was extremely vulnerable and needed their protection to remain safe. This is how I learned to protect myself and choose safe ways to be vulnerable enough to go deeper into my practice.

Yoga taught me that boundary is not a limitation, it is a frame of reference. It is where we start not where we end up. When we learn to honor boundary we find freedom. When we don’t honor it we create limitation. This is the paradox.

One of the most intriguing aspects of boundary that I have experienced in my yoga practice occurs in handstand. As with all yoga postures there are stages of the posture and sequences that move toward greater refinement as well as difficulty. When I do handstand near a wall I am fearless because I know if I kick up with too much force the wall will catch me and keep me from falling over. When I have the wall as a reference point I am more easily able to find my balance in mid-air albeit for a nano second, but there I am. What’s even more amazing to me is when I don’t have a wall as a frame of reference, but have an experienced partner who can act as my wall, I make it into handstand fairly easily without fear.  Then when all he/she does is create a subtle boundary by placing a fingertip on the tip of one of my heels, I find my balance and can extend more fully into the handstand finding more freedom. I am able to hold the pose until I get too tired to do it any longer. Aside from the thrill of what I regard as an amazing feat in my practice, how does this have any practical application in everyday life?

Like an adolescent seeking autonomy, when we equate boundary with restriction, limitation, and loss of freedom  we rebel against it. We throw caution to the wind, mistakenly thinking that freedom is the ability to say and do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want. In this frame of mind we tend to make immature rather than wise choices, ultimately creating more limitation for ourselves. Sometimes we even mistakenly call this rebellion against boundary “creativity.” Genuine creativity, however, requires discipline. We have to learn to master structure before we can become truly creative. Just like being in handstand, we need boundary to find our balance.

According to Pia Mellody, “Boundaries are invisible and symbolic energetic fields that have three purposes: (1) to keep people from coming into our space, (2) to keep us from going into the space of others, (3) to give each of us a way to embody our sense of “who we are.”

Boundaries are both external and internal. Our external boundary defines our physical space, allows us to choose our distance from other people, and enables us to give or refuse permission for them to come too close. Our external boundary also keeps our bodies from invading someone else’s space.

Our internal boundary protects our thoughts, feelings, and actions and keeps them functional. Honoring our internal boundary means taking responsibility for our thinking, feelings, and behavior and allows us to keep them separate from that of others. We stop blaming them for what we think, feel, and do. We also stop taking responsibility for the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others, which allows us to stop manipulating and controlling those around us.

When we go deep enough into our hearts we discover that our internal boundary is actually love. It is the core, the border, the outline, and the edge of life. We discover the patience, tenderness, gentleness, strength, passion, forgiveness, understanding, generosity, and joyfulness that exist within each of us. We experience our limitlessness, expansiveness, and boundlessness by exploring this boundary of the heart. We experience our connection to one another. When love is our frame of reference, we stop thinking of boundary as limitation. Since love is unbounded we experience its quality of boundlessness.

Nelson Mandela is an example of someone who used the boundary of prison to cultivate his awareness of the boundless boundary of love.  Ultimately love became his freedom and the freedom of an entire culture that had been locked in the prison walls of apartheid’s rigid restrictions and extreme limitation. This awareness required great discipline and tremendous sacrifice on Mandela’s part. It did not come without effort. It was not free. Like Nelson Mandela each one of us has the capability of stretching into the ever-expanding boundary of love to find more freedom.

Whether or not boundaries grant you greater freedom or create greater restriction depends on your state of consciousness. Are you driven by anger, fear, and limitation? Are you frightened and overwhelmed by the magnitude of life? Do you attempt to make your life small enough to feel safe or are you driven by love, joy, and a desire to become big enough and strong enough to endure a life that is rich and full of possibility? Which boundary do you choose to cultivate?

Love Yourself, Love Your Life

In April I attended a retreat that I have wanted to go to for five years. Each year I would promise myself next year I’m going to make sure I attend. Every year when I received the brochure announcing the retreat, I would look to see when it was offered, only to discover another commitment prevented me from attending. This year I decided to make sure I made myself a priority. Attending this retreat was an act of self-love. Master Teacher Maya Breuer, at Kripalu Center for Yoga And Health, offered “A Yoga Retreat For Women of Color™” which she founded 12 years ago. The retreat was specifically for women of color, but the theme of the retreat was universal – Love Your Life. Loving your life is a tall order to fill. Knowing how can be a challenge. Like anything that seems too big to manage, I decided to break it into bite-size pieces. It occurred to me that in order to love your life, you have to start by loving yourself.

Self-love is the willingness to cherish yourself for who you are, not for who someone else needs you to be. Without self-love it is impossible to love your life or to love others, yet self-love is not traditionally thought of as being the foundation for loving your life. Self-love is not self-indulgence, but love of self that demonstrates that we regard ourselves as worthy. When we regard ourselves as worthy, we treat ourselves accordingly in thought, word, and deed. Self-love comes from the heart and results in an open heart that allows you to experience and express the love you actually are.

Why is self-love important? Because no one can love you better that you can love yourself – nor can you love anyone else better than you can love yourself. Loving others more than you love yourself is an energy drain that leads to great disappointment, bitterness, anger, and resentment. Looking for love from others drains them and leaves you feeling like a bottomless pit. It leads to feelings of dependency and ultimately deprivation and emptiness.

Learning to love yourself leads to fulfillment. You and you alone have the power to fulfill your own needs and desires. This is not to say that we do not need others. We do. We long to live in community and in right relationship. But a prerequisite is being able to take good care of your self. Many of us learn to equate self-love with vanity and selfishness. Actually, the more loving, kind, generous, and patient you are with yourself – the more these qualities will manifest in your relationships with others. Self-love has the power to enhance relationships even if only one person in the relationship practices it. It is transformational.

There are five aspects of self love that if practiced will open your heart to loving yourself and loving your life.

Kindness is first. To develop a loving relationship with ourselves, we must be committed to treating ourselves with loving kindness in thought, word, and deed. It means we must make peace with and affirm ourselves. We must refrain from thinking of ourselves negatively, calling ourselves names in anger, or engaging in behavior that is in any way harmful to us. We must be radically affirmative in our relationship to ourselves.

Authenticity is the second aspect of self-love. We must be open to the truth of our being. We must be willing to be who we are. This is what is meant by the saying, “To thine own self be true.” Each one of us has been given special gifts and talents to fulfill our purpose. To ignore, reject, or misuse these innate abilities is an act of self-rejection and undermines our sense of self worth and our ability to be in right relationship with others. Love yourself for who you actually are, not for who you think someone expects you to be. It is better to strive toward being who you are than to excel at being someone you are not. March to the beat of your own drum.

Gratitude is the third aspect of self-love. It is important to practice appreciating what you have, and who you are. Many of us spend far too much time focusing on what we wish we had, or what we don’t have, which leads to deep inner suffering. We think that having what we don’t have will alleviate our suffering. Actually, it is our focus on what we don’t have, not the absence of something, that leads to our suffering. As long as you are comparing yourself to others as being better or worse than you, you will suffer, and you will deprive yourself of peacefulness and contentment in your life.

Balance is the fourth aspect of self-love that we need to develop. We need to be able to flow comfortably between giving and receiving. Some people find it easier to give while others find it easier to receive. If giving comes more naturally to you, you will eventually have a need to receive. If receiving comes more naturally to you, you will eventually have a desire to give. Remember the sage advice of Bob Dylan in his song Forever Young:  “May you always do for others and let others do for you.” We need to able to both give and receive to balance our personalities.

Forgiveness is the fifth aspect of self-love. Forgiving ourselves for our mistakes is an act of self-love that requires letting go of shame, blame, criticism, and self-accusation. There are three steps to self-forgiveness. Identify what you think you’ve done wrong. Let yourself feel the remorse associated with what you’ve done. Promise not to do it again and keep the promise. Then let it go.

Any one of these five steps if practiced consistently will inevitably lead to self-love, the foundation of loving your life. But to accomplish this you have to walk the path of self-love in complete devotion. It is difficult to remain on a path that doesn’t feel natural. So here is a practice that might assist you. There is a center in the body where love, compassion, and trust reside. It is the spiritual heart center.

Your spiritual heart center lies just behind the breastbone. Close your eyes and be aware of your heart as a space. Let your attention rest easily there. Breathe gently and sense your breath going gently into your heart center. As you do this, ask your heart to speak to you – and for the next few minutes just sit in silence and listen. Whatever message your heart has for you know that it is beneficial.

Love yourself, love your life.

Infinite Possibility, Unlimited Potential

It might not always seem like it, but we live in a world of infinite possibility. We have unlimited potential. This is not true for just some of us; it’s true for all of us. The trick is learning how to access your possibilities and actualize your potential.

When I was a child I used to ask my mother, “Mom, what should I do when I grow up?” She always gave the same answer. “What I think you should do isn’t as important as finding what’s right for you.” “But how will I know?” I asked. Her answer was always the same. “Choose something you’re good at, something you love, and something you can commit to. Then think about how you can use your gifts and talents to help others.  What really matters is that you give of yourself from your heart.”

I was reminded of this conversation with my mother in a workshop I attended last month led by the founder of Anusara Yoga, John Friend. He taught us asana, and offered insight into what it means to actualize your potential through the contemplation of your own innate goodness, and the cultivation of your own unique talents and abilities.  The measure of a good yoga practice he said, is not just what you do on the mat, but also the insight you gain into yourself, and what you do with that knowledge off the mat to make the world a better place.  It got me to thinking about my mother’s wisdom.

DO WHAT YOU LOVE, WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT, AND WHAT HELPS OTHERS
•When you make doing what you love, and what you’re good at your focus, you have a greater chance of getting better at it, eventually gaining mastery of it, and of being truly successful. When you make doing something that helps other people your focus it will give you a reason to get up in the morning and motivate you to keep going even when things are tough. The key to unleashing your unlimited potential in a world of infinite possibility starts by taking the time and finding the courage to discover and focus on what really matters to you – not your parents, your friends, your spouse, your children, or neighbors, but what really matters to you.

Your ultimate goal in life is to become your best self, not so you can be the best in the world, but so you can be the best for the world. This requires taking some time to reflect on who you are. It requires facing the self you are afraid you might be if you’re not living up to everyone else’s expectations. It requires finding out who you really are in all of your radiant uniqueness. Your authentic self is synonymous with your best self. You and your unique gifts are irreplaceable. In the words of Tantric scholar Douglas Brooks’ beloved  teacher Appa, “You are the point the universe is trying to make.”

The planet needs a diversity of talents and abilities if we are to succeed as individuals, families, communities, and nations. The world needs you to be who you are and to express your unique gifts and talents. If your ultimate goal is to be your best self, your immediate goal is to get on the path that will lead you there. If you want to be the best for the world, you have to align with the best in you.

WHAT DO YOU REALLY LOVE?
•Many of us have spent so much time living up to others’ expectations of us that we’ve lost sight of what we really love. Let your passion lead you. When you have a desire that you can’t get out of your mind and your heart, that’s the one. Without passion for doing something, you’ll never be successful, because you won’t be able to sustain the energy necessary to continue on when faced with the inevitable challenges that will come your way.

In order to know what’s best in you, you have to follow your heart’s deepest desires. You have to overcome internal and external barriers to become successful doing what you love. Some people hold themselves back because they’re afraid they won’t be able to make money doing what they love. If you can cultivate self-respect and inner security, and develop a commitment to your own talents, you can earn as much money as you need or want. True success requires going beyond the goal of making money to the goal of creating purpose and meaning in your life in all that you do. It takes everything you have to give: all your talent, energy, focus, commitment, and all your love, but the rewards are worth it and come immediately the minute you consciously choose on behalf of what’s most important to you. You actually become what you love.

WHAT ARE YOU’RE GOOD AT?
•What you dislike most is probably not what you are best suited for. It is a waste of time trying to get better at something that doesn’t suit you. Why not use your energy getting better at something you enjoy…something you’re already good at? We tend to do our best at what we do the best.  People who fulfill their potential and function most effectively know their limits; then they integrate these limits into the way they function best. In other words, learn to leverage your faults to your advantage. Oprah said she didn’t become truly successful until she started to be herself. Russell Simmons wrote a book about it called “Do You.” The most successful people in the world, are the ones who know their strengths and their limitations. They focus on and build on their strengths instead of trying to improve on their limitations.

ARE YOU SERVING OTHER PEOPLE?
•This is a question you should ask yourself before you start your day. Then ask it again periodically throughout the day. Service to others is not a burden to undertake. It is an obligation to choose, and therein lies our freedom. Service to others is a high calling. It is by doing what you love and what you are good at that you serve the greater good. It is by being the best for the world that you serve others. When you forget about what people will think of you and instead concern yourself with how you can be most helpful to them, you are engaged in selfless service to others. We serve others best when we commit to looking for and focusing on our innate inner goodness and then using that goodness to be the best for the world.

Thanks Mom!