Monday, April 30, 2012

Randomness from my ashram experience

3/25/'12
This time next week, I'll be soaring to the next chapter of my life. That was meant to sound spiritual, but I literally will soar--Kudos to Southwest Airlines, thank you very much.
I'm feeling a little bit nervous, mostly it's the normal pre-travel jitters/post-coffee shakes. But then there's a part of me that wonders why I signed up to live with a bunch of hippies for a month. Who thought that would be a good idea? A new 18 year old who didn't want to get a grownup job or have grownup responsibilities, that's who. To be honest, I'm concerned about all these yogis' reactions to my hair straightener, overflowing makeup bag, and vanilla body wash. They all share environmentally friendly soap. Okay, I'm starting to sound like a cynic. Yoga is all about open mindedness, right?

4/1/'12
Three things I've learned today:
1) meditative walking makes it look like snails were zipping past me.
2) Unless I want to eat my concealer, it probably shouldn't go on my face. Away with the makeup bag.
3) I could've sworn I heard my meditation teacher tell me to open up my sex chakras. My third eye is looking at me funny.

4/2/'12
I'm enjoying this whole learning how to breathe thing. It sounds so simple (and 30 minutes of sitting and breathing seemed slightly daunting), but pranayama ended up being both challenging and invigorating. Breathing into the navel still sounds a lot like jargon, but I am getting better at taking deep full breaths and trying to just let go. It's nice to focus more on the breath than making my abs look nice. Something about this place instantly made me less vain. I haven't obsessed, planned, re-planned, and distraught over my food choices once. The makeup bag is still in the depths of my suitcase.
...Our first dish cleanup, however, was slightly intimidating. The number of dishes by the sink made me jump to start sweeping the dining room. Most excited I've ever been about seeing a broom. As for the pre-cleanup mantra? We took a good five minutes to say "om namah shivaya." Say that 108 times fast.
No, seriously, say that 108 times. It's a good mind block for the first twenty times, then my mind starts traveling to what I could be doing in these five minutes of chanting, or how much leftover tempeh I could be eating. Wait. I want more tofu? I may just become a root eating, om chanting Hare Krishna after all. Or something.

4/3/'12
I really envy those who have mastered the art of conversation. Basic small talk, I can do: "Where are you from? What brought you to Shoshoni? Oh my Shiva, where did all the ghee go?" But even with the Shoshoni people, the most non-judgmental like, ever, I still feel like I've screwed up communication. I sort of jumped into Ganga and Abaya's conversation about tattoos, and I ended up lecturing about what tattoos Johnny Depp has. I was just cringing at myself in horror when my mouth would not shut up. There's so many ways I could have played this. Ganga used to work in a tattoo parlor. Would a follow up question kill me? Do I really have to rant about my life, in which I read too much about tattooed celebrities? My distinguishing between friendly and annoying seems not well practiced here.

4/4/'12
I meditated about the thought of coffee this morning. It worked pretty well.

4/7/'12
I just want to work out, stretch, and forget about this spirituality stuff. My hips are screaming after all the meditation. It's nice to turn away from obsessing/negative thoughts, but what about productive thoughts? Should we sway from those? Ugh. My brain feels squashed right now. Everyone makes spiritual references all the time. It's not windy outside, it's vata aggravating.

4/14/'12
The beautiful thing about Shoshoni is that emotions and loss are not off limits. We can be sad, or mad, and not hide it. We breathe through it; I love how open everyone. If I run into my friend here in the bathroom, she'll happily tell me that she's about to sunbathe in the woods naked. No Shoshoni shame here.

4/15/'12
I learned how to pick-axe today, feeling the most BA I've ever felt in my life. Party in the ashram, if I do say so myself.

4/20/'12
Oh hello there, 4/20. Yogis have a surprising amount of baggage from this day. The Burning Man festival is as common here as pep rallies are back home. And only slightly less glitter. I'm feeling like the lamest 18 year old in the history of teenagers. Here I am, going to bed at 8:30 every night, I rock out to chanting music, and it's a wild day if I drink an extra cup of coffee.
Granted, I've also learned not to be afraid of new people, and if I ask about their lives, that gets them talking. I've learned to surrender more to what's going on around me. (although calorie counts are still raging in my head. Couldn't I leave some room for more interesting thoughts?) I've even learned that work is inevitable, no matter how many times I procrastinate on facebook, and to just do it, damnit!
But still, no drugs, no alcohol, no partying, or smoking in my life. It's like I'm an 80 year old living in an 18 year old's body.

...I had my first plainly obvious "pitta" moment today--though I didn't successfully breathe through it or surrender. After lunch, we were signing up for dish cleanup, and I was all ready to do dining room, like I always do. A fellow yoga immersion, however, beat me to it. I was so afraid of asking how to work the dishroom at week three, that I panicked. In my compulsive need for routine, I asked the other immersion if she needed help with the dining room. She was my friend, after all. She'd look out for me, be on my side. I was so confident in this, that if you thought I was excited about sweeping the first week, you haven't seen anything.
Instead, she patted me on the shoulder, and said, "you're gonna have to learn something new today." Well, I felt terribly ganged up on. Wasn't this the same woman with whom I'd spent laughing about comparing men to chocolate? It's like my friend's signing up for the dining room was a personal attack. I ended up sweeping and drying dishes, but I was seething in anger that whole time. And she knew it. I felt like I was getting in everyone's way, and that they hated me for it. 4 hours after Hannuman's words of "nine times out of ten, how you think others perceive you is wrong."
After I cooled down a bit, I realized why I got so worked up: I feel unequivocally guilty for avoiding the dishes for 3 weeks. Like I was hiding from new experiences. I mean, Shoshoni is all about new growth, and diving into things you wouldn't otherwise like to do. So tomorrow at lunch I am signing up for the dishes. It won't be a blast, but it can't be worse than what I've built it up to be. Besides, a good way to live life is do what would make for the best personal essay. In terms of instant gratification, avoiding dishes and munching on chocolate is great. But how would that sound on paper?: "I resented the dishes, I was afraid of messing up, and then I left Shoshoni never having done the dishes."
Pretty lousy essay, if you ask me.
Other than that, it's been a pretty nice day. I've learned the important things of life: small talk is no longer a death sentence. People's bad days aren't my problem. Dope growing friends don't just exist in movies. And, despite the tumultuous relationship with my body, I now tend to see a hot yoga bod in the mirror. I focus on what it can do and how strong I'm getting, rather than the fact that I don't look like a stick thin supermodel. I like to eat, darnit! Especially the food here. Deep fried portobello mushroom samosas? Bring it on. But hey, like A.J. Jacobs said, "everything in moderation, including moderation."

4/23/'12
Highlight of the day: Brian and Deepak channeling "shit yogis say" with their own "stuff Shoshoni says":
"Are we out of ghee?"
"Game time, let's meditate!"
"It's the shakti."

Lowlight: Feeling like I've been run over by five trucks, after climbing 11,000 feet mountains, on top of two hours of yoga. Perhaps I may have overdone it just a little. The view of the mountains made it worth it at the moment, though. And hey, it's all about being in the present moment, even if your legs feel like rubber afterwards, right?

4/26/'12
My second breakdown here...it seems I've just been falling apart these past few days. I'd felt pretty off all of today, so by the time I dropped a bunch of dishes, I just lost it. I ended up crying to Lindsay about how I seem to be regressing, and I just want people to like me, and see me as a friend, not some guest who wants to be instantly enlightened. Lindsay described it as I might have started at Shoshoni with certain goals and expectations, but as time went on, I thought less about how people perceived me, and just dove into the practices. Now that the end is coming up, I'm seeing those same goals, and my same patterns, and I'm freaking out. It's like I wanted to erase everything bad in my life before I left for home. I had an expectation that after a month, I'd be totally chilled out and not anxious, and life would be one giant om cloud. But when your brain is wired a certain way, it takes a lot longer than a month to train yourself to have a whole new perspective on life.
It makes sense to work though stuff by falling apart, reflecting, then growing. And I realize I'll always have an anxious personality, but maybe I can see the anxiety and fear as some nasty weather that's around me, but not controlling my life. It's a passing rainstorm, not a prison sentence. I've always identified myself as being frozen or fearful. I'm so much more than that. I'm a creator, a writer, a dance, a joyful lover of coffee and chocolate. I'm silly, but introspective, I'm all of these things, no matter how many friends I have, or what weight I am.

4/28/'12
It's my official last day here at Shoshoni. I definitely feel more ready to go home, but there's still that sentimental air to everything here. I'm not nearly as worried about projecting into the future. Before I came to Shoshoni, I related to songs like "I don't care." Now I'm jamming out to "soak up the sun" and "good life."
I know life isn't perfect. There will be times when I feel like I'm regressing. But that's just the moment. One day I might feel like I'm ugly and unliked, and the next I could feel like hot shit. As long as I know that inner joy I've tried to suppress stays inside me, it won't matter what happens. I may not have turned into that root-eating, om chanting hippie, but the biggest difference is that I don't want to. I just want to be me. And I have a feeling I'll be back at Shoshoni to grow more. Until then, I can now say I've successfully gotten to know the inner self. She's a pretty cool self, gotta say.

Namaste.  

Monday, April 2, 2012

update one from shoshoni

Hello, internet-go-ers! This will be a short one, just a quick update to those wondering that Shoshoni is absolutely amazing. I've already had two meditation sessions, one complete with a Guru Gita chant. I do believe it was love at first glance of those glorious rocky mountains, still lightly capped with snow, despite the 80 degree weather. I don't think I've ever seen something so quietly demand attention, but the mountains fall in that category. Today has gone back to normal colorado weather; snow is already layering on the deck, but I'm still excited to begin work outside. I've run into Namu, the dog a few times, so hopefully he can romp around outside to keep us work study yogis company. The four of us are excited to get the full experience this month!
Namaste