How to be in love. Really, truly in love.

In love without attachment. How can I be really truly in love without being attached? 

Full of peace, no drama, no crisis, just being.

Ive been wandering around this question for years, reluctant to let go of the idea of “being in love” for the more noble goal of developing Bodhicitta. I felt often at war with these concepts, unwilling to let go of my desire to be in a loving relationship, to feel and to be loved, while developing compassion for all sentient beings.

I don’t think that these things are mutually exclusive. I think that you can love and be loved, while being free from attachment to the person you love and to the concept of love itself. 

And once you are there, the act of loving and being loved is pure, free from wanting and taking. I think in order to get there, you have to examine closely what it means to be loved, to give love. What love is and why it is necessary. 

One of the major tenants of Buddhist Philosophy is that we become free from attachment. Attachment to things, people, emotions. If we are trying to achieve emptiness (which is a desirable state, a place of equanimity, not a place of abandonment as many western minds would initially think), we must look at what causes feelings of attachment.

Our ego is the source of pride, of wounds, of attachment, of bliss, of elation. Identifying our ego not as the thing that defines us, (our ego is not our personality) but as the thing that emotionally reacts according to our programing. We were programed emotionally to respond by those who raised us, by society in general around us. So our programming, our automatic responses are not thoughtful and mindful, but are just that, reactions.

Our ego is a bottomless pit that desires to be attached, to be fed. We feel temporary sensations of elation and bliss when our ego is appeased. Often the price of appeasing your ego, or indulging it is equally painful as the bliss was wonderful. Being led by your ego into decisions you make on how you relate to others, decisions in business, decisions in general is being led blindly. It is decision making in life through base, un filtered emotion. It is also how most of us make most of our decisions, without even realizing it. 

We check with our internal desires: “Do I really want this?” might be a question we ask. “Is this healthy for me?” might be another. But what is the filter through which you receive your answer from yourself? Years of conditioning, fueled by want, probably. Even for those of us that have learned to find our internal compass, it becomes important to know what tuned or informed that compass.

A gift given freely. I feel love in my heart for you and so here is a kiss. Its yours, something to recieve.

The compass will get clearer as you begin to identify areas where your ego is asking you to respond one way, and you listen to it without first creating space between yourself and your emotional response to a situation. 

So first, in order to practice identifying ego, and removing it from decision making; practice observing your emotional reactions with curiosity. Observation and curiosity are two powerful tools that create space between you and your emotions, and your action following those emotions.

This is not to suggest that having emotions is wrong or bad. I think our minds easily go to a place where we might think, this is me being asked not to feel, or to deny my feelings. Not at all. To feel is to be human. To experience emotion is to live the human experience. 

The question is can you be a more evolved human? Can you experience your emotions with some detachment to their directive? Without being owned by them? Do you have choice in an emotional place. Can you feel pain and sorrow and observe it as it goes through your body, noting its depth, and its quality, without wishing you were not experiencing it? Can you let the emotion that you are experiencing be your teacher? Can you be grateful for the lesson without cultivating anger towards the person who you would like to blame for making you feel this way? Can you own your part in whatever mad you feel this way? Can you allow grace and compassion for yourself while you observe yourself going through the process of grief, knowing that it is perfect and necessary. 

Obviously we learn how to handle our emotions to some extent through social norms. Lets say we are walking down the street, and there is a person who is eating an ice cream. Our internal desire lights up. Ice cream tastes good, we may experience desire to taste that ice cream. We know better than to walk up to that person and just lick their ice cream cone. 

We know that that ice cream belongs to them, and even though we have the desire to taste it, we decide not to follow through. If we observe our emotional reaction with curiosity, we may have the added benefit of being able to take that sensation of desire and turn it over in our mind. This is the quality of desire, this is what it feels like, this is how my mouth reacts to the idea of ice cream, this is how attached I am to the concept of needing to fulfill my desire. 

Ultimately it may be a more rewarding experience to meditate on your emotional reaction without being an unwilling victim of it. You can choose to go buy your own ice cream, and experience the sensation of eating it mindfully, or you can continue walking.

Here is where the question of love and attachment comes in. 

Blissful emotions are easy to become attached to. Experiencing them is amazing. We all desire bliss. They say that the state of enlightenment is blissful, entering a Nhirvannic state is the ultimate. (Bodhisaatvas continually deny this pleasure, refusing to attain their final state of Buddahood and enlightenment until all sentient beings are free from suffering. They “flee Nirvanna like it is a burning iron house”).

Am I holding on to you, or are you holding on to me? Or are we touching each other to transmit loving kindness, freely? A gift passing back and forth between us, each time giving with no expectation for reciprocation, each time received with gratitude.

But attachment is attachment. How do we experience bliss while not being attached to it? The same way we experience anger without being attached to it. Emotion is like the water in the stream. You wade out into it, and watch it swirl around you. You experience, in much more depth, the quality of each emotion when you are able to dispassionately and with curiosity observe its characteristics and qualities.

Attachment means thinking that you need this emotion in order to feel fulfilled. Experiencing your emotion fully means making space between you and that feeling, so you may observe with curiosity each aspect of the human experience, whether blissful or sorrowful, but ultimately without having your equanimity disturbed by either one of these emotions. 

Like a willow tree in the wind, imagine your capacity for feeling to be as expansive as the universe, imagine each branch capable of moving with the wind, whether its a gentle, warm breeze, or a cold gale force wind. 

Your ability to stand in the midst of all of these kinds of emotions, to see them, feel them, examine them, experience them without having them dictate your behavior allows you to have a greater depth of human experience. 

Now imagine that you are in love. There is one person in your life that you have formed a loving bond with. This is a good thing, and it doesn’t have to mean that you are “attached”. Think of attached meaning your sense of self or self worth being dependent upon unregulated input by someone else. In other words “they act loving towards me, therefore I feel my worth” that is a direct attachment. 

“I feel love from this person and experience its gift, I look at and examine the feelings of love not dispassionately but from a perspective of curiosity.” This allows you to actually experience the person, the feeling, to cultivate gratitude, to practice loving kindness, to remove your ego, to really experience love without contamination. 

If we are looking at an overall goal being that of achieving emptiness, ending suffering, that of yourself, and that of others, the road map would look like this, the end point being on top. (So read the list from the bottom)

Finally, Emptiness, void of attachment and suffering of any kind. Bodhicitta.

Resultant Equanimity, at peace with the fluctuations of our emotions, not owned by them, able to see clearly and have choice in the midst of bliss or chaos.

Compassion and loving kindness for all sentient beings

Cultivating Loving Kindness and Compassion for our enemies

Further exploration of and detachment from our Ego

Cultivation of Compassion for those we have no connection to 

Cultivation of Compassion for those we care for, like family or friends

Cultivation of loving kindness to those you care for

Cultivation of Loving Kindness to yourself

Each branch catches the wind, feeling its power, whether gentle or fierce. At its center, the tree experiences all of this, but in the end, is not defined by it. 

Loving kindness leads to compassion. When practicing loving kindness, we learn gratitude, we learn to give from a peaceful place. The process of learning not to be attached begins with attachment. 

Skipping to the end, trying “not to care” or “be attached” to others without first practicing cultivating loving kindness and compassion simply leads to a denial of emotion and an in-emotive state. You become conditioned to “not feeling”, rather than feeling all of it, but having a beautiful space of objectivity through which you can observe your emotions and reaction. 

Who do you feel attached to? Your friends, your family, your lover? Practicing gratitude for those people cultivates compassion for them. Practicing loving kindness towards them helps you learn to grow the capacity of your heart. 

In the next step, when you practice expanding your loving kindness to those you feel ambivalent about, you deepen your ability to not be attached while feeling love, or compassion. 

This is a good place to recognize your ego. If you can cultivate compassion for those you have no attachment to or affection for, you may find yourself wanting praise or accolades or recognition for these acts. 

This is a beautiful opportunity for a lesson. See the egoic piece that needs recognition, and then ask yourself if you can give your love as a gift, needing nothing in return. Because you are also compassionate to yourself, and have cultivated loving kindness to yourself, when it is time to give to someone who is not your friend or family, give willingly and without need for return. Give from your overflowing cup. 

If your cup is not overflowing yet, practice loving kindness and compassion toward your own self first. 

This is not selfish behavior, this is you practicing understanding what love and compassion are before you try to give them to someone else. If ultimately, your love is grounded in need, when you do give it to someone, you give it conditionally, with strings attached. 

“I will love you if you act this way.”

Practicing being enough for you makes you whole and healthy enough to give your love without toxic attachment, and at the same time, allows you to receive the gift of someone else's’ love without needing to take it from them. 

So how do we deal with wants and needs in a relationship? Giving your love without stating your needs can feel like laying down and letting someone walk all over you.

Its integrity intact, the tree bows to the force applied, acceptance. Over time, the tree will stand as the weight is lifted. 

However, laying down and letting someone walk all over you shows that you do not have compassion or loving kindness for yourself. It is not a compassionate choice to be in a relationship with someone who is not practicing gratitude for the love the are receiving. And at the same time, we do not give our love conditionally.

Here is where it can get tricky, and I think a good step to remember is that in order for you to give your love to someone else, whether it is a stranger or your committed partner, you need first to shine that light on yourself. Fill your vessel to overflowing, and from that place, give. 

If you practice making the compassionate choice for yourself, when your relationship boundaries are bumped, you can say clearly, that was the boundary of how I like to be treated. If you want to be with me, I need for you to respect that boundary. As we cultivate gratitude for the person we are with, and compassion for them, it becomes second nature to see our partners boundaries, and honor them well, without feeling like doing so takes from us. 

If we are practicing cultivating loving kindness towards first ourselves and then to those we love, and then to those we are ambivalent towards, and then towards those who cause us harm or feel like our enemies, we become powerful in our equanimity. We can stand in the center of bliss and loving kindness with those we care for just as easily as we can stand in the anger and ferocity of our enemies. 

Being able to stand and bend and see with objectivity both the positive and the negative allows us insight into the situation, enabling us to cultivate a strong middle path. 

This does not mean not to feel or love dive into the hearts of those we love. By all means, dive in. Love with ferocity. But allowing yourself to be owned by that love, attached to that sensation, dependent on it like food, as opposed to cultivating it and then having gratitude that in this moment, that emotion is present, you miss the point.

When you chase the bliss of love and attachment, you let the essence of its depth slip through your fingers. Compassion for the person you love means and includes loving them not in spite of, but inclusive of their faults as you see them. It means standing next to them with equanimity when they struggle. It means loving them the same whether they are on top of the world or being beaten up by it. When you are attached, or mistaking attachment for love, your partners ability to give love to you may define your experience of the relationship. 

If your partner loves to go hunting, lets say. And you are a vegetarian. You have nothing in common with this part of who they are. But it makes them happy and fulfilled. It is a healthy pass time, they get into nature with their buddies and get all muddy and bloody and come home feeling like they have accomplished something. They experienced time in the woods with their friends, cultivating gratitude and increasing loving kindness towards their friends. Lets say its not a trip you’d want to go on, or even better, not a trip you were invited along on.

Living in love without attachment means that when an opportunity for your partner arrises to do something that is meaningful to them, a wonderful way to cultivate loving kindness for them (which leads to compassion, which leads to equanimity), is to find a place in your heart where you WOULD be ego attached. 

This is the place that says, “Why doesn't he want to stay home with me? Why am I not invited? Why does he need these guy friends? Why is the trip a month long? Why do I have to stay home with the kids?” 

And hearing those little hurts and milking them, that’s your ego. That’s attachment.

Hearing those little hurts and recognizing them as your teacher, and then looking for a place to be able to say with truth, “I recognize that this is something that makes him happy. If I love him, I want him to be happy. Part of my job as a person who is in a loving relationship is to help my partner experience his world with love and joy. Therefore I am so excited for how happy he will be when he goes on this trip!”

Look for the emotion that he will get to experience. Let his potential to go without guilt, to feel freedom and support and compassion from you also fill you. Find the gift of yes, truly unattached to the outcome, not expecting tit for tat (If you go on this trip I get to go on this other one). Live your love free from worry or want or fear, let them go with your blessing. When you are willing to make that choice, and really practice it, you are living a depth of love that is that much more fulfilling for both of you.

Now this, of course, is about you experiencing love and commitment to a partner while practicing not having attachment. It is difficult if one person is practicing this way, and the other person is not, and therefore just takes.

Wrapped in each other, neither one owning the other, giving freely, experiencing the gift of human emotion without being defined by it.

You must evaluate whether you are making a compassionate choice to yourself to be with a person who is very ego attached and can not practice compassion towards you. If you stay in this situation, eventually, you will be depleted. 

However, practicing compassion for the fact that this is a path that takes people lifetimes to walk down, cultivating patience and grace for their practice is also important. This is a long journey, you yourself will need plenty of grace along the way. 

How do I move my edge forward so I'm always pushing myself?

I had a friend email me the other day after I wrote the post about looking over your edge but not jumping off of it.

You might have to take a running leap off your emotional or mental edge to make change, like getting to class in the first place.

He asked to some extent, "What about moving your edge, so you are always pushing yourself?" Another friend asked something like "What about re-evaluating your boundaries and deciding if you want to move your edge?"

I thought those were good questions. And I think they have the same answer.

If you practice the right way, your edge moves itself.

But you have to pay attention. And have grace for where the edge is. And test it. Is it your mental edge or your physical edge? You have to push against it to see if you have more to give. You must not judge where your edge is compared to where it was yesterday. Your job is just to walk forward, every day, to your edge.

That's part of the compassionate choice. That's part of listening. You will NOT make improvements every day.

You will make improvements over time. The body changes every day according to how much sleep its had, what kind of food its had, how much it stretched or worked the day before.

That's why in weight lifting, you take days off of body parts while they heal and grow.

In yoga, your body becomes MUCH more flexible over time. In fact, tonight, I surprised myself by putting my face on the floor for the first time ever in a certain posture. Ive been practicing diligently for about two years.

Over time, if I came to my edge with diligence and patience, every single day, my edge moved. Overall, my face was closer to the floor. But day to day, in this posture, my edge was a good eight inches away from where I'd been the night before in practice. Sometimes it would stay that way for a week.

Once you are there, it will feel more like this every day. Walk willingly to the physical edge. Have grace for wherever that edge is today. 

Sometimes, I'd have weeks where I was a millimeter closer every day for a week, and then suddenly be able to go several inches further, followed immediately by a class where everything felt tighter.

If I fought the process, I frustrated myself. If I had grace and patience for the process, and just made the commitment to go to my physical max every single time I practiced, over all, the result was hugely positive.


If you practice the right way, that is by dedicating all of your effort to practicing well and correctly, rather than practicing through a prideful place, you will be far less likely to get injured, you will be much more likely to get amazing depth in your practice, and your practice becomes singularly about you and where you are in your body on that day. You have grace for your own becoming, and with that grace, you grow faster.

The ghost of who you were can be a guide for who you are becoming

Yesterday, I was in an amazing Ashtanga workshop at Arjuna Yoga in Aspen. I was looking at myself in the mirror, and I was confronted suddenly with who I had been. 

Ashtanga. The first series of Hatha Yoga. One Hundred Breaths here.

When you dedicate your life to healing, and you feel like you are making progress, sometimes its shocking to see vestiges of who you once were, or to hear old stories about what is true playing out in real time. 

It took me by surprise and shook me hard.

I have been so happy to have the opportunity to examine what drives me, why I made the choices I made, to ferret out emotional responses that exist because of past triggers. In therapy and over the years in personal practice, I have been able to face those sometimes very frightening automatic responses and dissect them, exposing their origin and rewiring its power over me. 

In any journey, there are more difficult sections. Over this summer, I've been enjoying a bit of a respite from what sometimes feels like forced Becoming. Readers that have been with me for a long time might remember posts where I asked, annoyed, "Can I stop learning now? Can this not be a day where I have to be humble and learn another lesson? Can I just rest and be enough today?" And the answer has often been no. You can not rest if there is work that needs to be done. 

And sometimes it is yes. And often, a period of rest is preparing you for your next big evolution.

And since tryouts ended in April, and because of the gentle and loving support of some good friends, I had the opportunity to not be under scrutiny suddenly. I was not surrounded by mentors who kindly hold the mirror up every day and ask for more. I was at the beach. In the sun. It was amazing.

Since I got back, Ive slowly relaxed into enjoying my summer jobs, Downhill Mountain Biking is freeing and fun and its incredible to be a teacher in a sport like this. The barriers to entry seem huge. People look at the gear and the pads and the jumps and the bikes and they think, "I could never do that."

But they can. And showing people that there is so much more to themselves than they ever bargained for is why I am passionate about teaching. 

But in order to be a great teacher, I think you have to be an outstanding student. Especially of yourself. And while there is a LOT for me to learn about riding DH, there isn't the depth of instructors at Aspen yet. There isn't this level of technical accountability that drives me in skiing. (There is in the sport, just the school is young, and we are learning as we go.)

And so to fill my need to be a student with a guru, I continued my yoga practice, crossing my fingers that I'll get the Bikram scholarship so that I can go to LA for nine weeks and get my ass kicked as a student, and emerge with another level of Becoming unfolded, lick my wounds, be grateful for them, and put all that into my winter teaching skiing and massage. 

Its a strange cycle. And I wasn't really planning on having to do that work until I went to teacher training. But I accidentally started studying before I left for Bikram.

Your teacher shows up when you least expect it. Sharon Caplan continues to learn while she teaches, inspiring us all during every class.

A few months ago, I started an Ashtanga yoga practice with this very gentle teacher whom I admire greatly, Sharon Caplan. She has an incredibly giving heart, she is incredibly inspiring in her demonstration, showing depth of practice that is beyond a physical yoga body. I don't really know how to describe it. She expects you to give all you have to give. She expects you to be accountable for your health and injury situation. She doesn't demand. But you'd be a fool not to take all she offers. 

So I'm standing in class. And I’m looking in the mirror. In general, I like what I see. (Im not talking about the body, I'm talking about the person. The body seems to be a reflection of the person.) And I begin to see glimmers of these old beliefs about myself, some of which I had worked through. Some of which are being revealed as the practice strips away armor I didn’t know I still had. 

Old Belief : (This I know is not true, but the whispers surprised me and took my strength) I look strong, but I’m not, I’m heavy. People who think I am strong are fooled by how my body holds weight. 

Belief: All of my strength comes from my mind. When I believe I am strong, I behave as a strong person does. (Part of this belief is true, but I think it needs to be framed right.)

I’m believing that one because when I am not attached to other people’s concept of me, but happy to be who I am where I am, practicing and training for my health and equanimity, I am strong. I can do all the flows, all the chattarangas. That I can do that is not a measure of my physical capabilities over someone else’s. It is a measure of my belief in myself and my dedication to my practice, which lends me strength, and as a result, strengthens my body over time.

Here is the doozy that I realized was pointing at truth:

Belief: Although I have gotten stronger over time, my core is weak, has always been weak, will always be weak, and is a weakness that I must work around. 

I know that beliefs like this are crutches. This is a road block. My core will not get strong until I look in the emotional mirror and decide that I have lived under the power of suggestion that my core is weak, has been weak and will always be weak, therefore, I work around it, I compensate, I protect the weakness so that I have an excuse. 

I used to be ruled by a disappointment that I didn't, and couldn't look like this. Now I'm so happy just to look like me.  But acceptance is different than complacency.

In order to change this belief, I have to be willing to make my core strong. To look right at it, not to work around it or compensate for it. Just like a lousy drop shot in tennis. You want to have a whole game? Your lousy drop shot is now your favorite shot, eventually developed into your most deadly weapon. Want to be a whole person? Welcome to your fear that keeps you from exploring a weakness you covet. 

Seeing this belief in the mirror hit me hard. Because once a Victim Crutch like this is exposed, if you are really a student of Becoming, you have a responsiblity to unpack that shit and get to work. 

Tummy issues are difficult. Not just for women, for everyone. And we all have our story. 

Ive grown to love and except my little paunch, a beautiful result of making two people. I don’t really mind that the skin on my belly is stretched and it doesn’t look like it did when I was 20.

I do mind that the strength under the skin is something I’m not willing to look at or change. Or haven’t been until now. I’ve paid lip service to it, I’ve strengthened my body all around it. But I haven’t run right at the thing that scares me. 

Our bellies have been described as our seat of creativity, our intuition and our will. Its is for this reason that I often do belly massage in massage therapy sessions. Cultivating love and joy for the soft home of creation. But in my own practice, grateful as I am for the creative space, I have accepted weakness as part of who I am. 

If I want to grow and become, I need to examine that belief. Because physical manifestations are so often just reflections of how we view ourselves. What am I protecting by not going in there? 

I journied back in my mind through the healing of beliefs I’ve encountered before, and I realized that this area, this belief system, is really deep, and really protective. 

Initially, I always kept a layer of fat on my belly to keep the monster at bay. Readers who have visited with me for a while will know that as a young child, I was abused by a man who I trusted to be a parent to me. 

I don’t hold any resentment or anger at him, he behaved the way that he did because of factors in his life that drove his behavior. Ultimately, I received the gift of examination and healing because of this obstacle. Un-believing the things I learned about myself at his hands has been a good practice for me, it is like looking for treasure in a dark and treacherous cave. There’s really nothing scary inside there unless you let the shadows tell you stories. And if you are diligent, you will find gold. 

Its either opportunity or fear. You chose.

And so. 

I feel these whispers, and its a familiar sensation, and I am momentarily frustrated because I feel like I’ve healed this place already. Its annoying to have to go back and re lay foundation.

But when I take a closer look, I realize only the sensation is familiar. Old whispers are an indication that we are close to a protected place that no longer serves. This isn't a place I've healed. This is a place I've not even visited.

The hint of disappointment and self rebuke, which once was so loud, is now just an invitation to discovery. The familiar sensation is my internal teacher telling me there is work I can do here that will lead to freedom. I know there is nothing real or scary in the cave. 

I know to run at the thing that scares me.

I know that in the darkness, with patience and diligence and willingness, I will find a piece of treasure. And if I examine it carefully, I will be rewarded with Becoming. With new clarity, new space between me and my story.

Its time to learn again.

Find your edge. Look over it. Don't jump off of it.

Lets say all kinds of light bulbs went off yesterday and you found your compassionate mind. You use it when you are standing in line for coffee. You ask if it is the compassionate choice to spend the $5 on a latte, knowing that it will be painful at the end of the month, causing stress and anxiety when you go to pay your rent. This impacts how you feel about you, your ability to save and spend wisely, this affects your relationships, this affects your ability to let your kids go to skate camp if they want to.

Your compassionate mind is not at work. Your automatic mind is not allowing you to let discomfort be your most tender teacher.

You order a drip instead of a latte. You feel warm, loved, cared for, content when you make this choice. You just put $50 back in your bank account over the next week. It is the compassionate choice.

How else can you use your compassionate mind?

In Yoga, we talk about going to your place of benefit. On the mat, it works like this:

In each posture, go only to your place of benefit on that day in that posture and go no further. Never sacrifice depth in a posture for alignment.

Its easy to say this, its harder to live it. Our western minds like the idea of being excellent at something. Of being best in the class, better than the person next to us. We get some satisfaction in excelling. We like to have our successes seen and lauded. If we aren't doing as well as we believe we can, we often want people to know it.

We throw our tennis rackets, or we roll our eyes or we sigh loudly, or we shake our heads. All of these silent (or not so silent) signals to whoever might be watching that we are frustrated because usually, we are better than this.

What if you were able to lay down your ego attachment, your idea that it matters what other people think, how they judge you, and then, even better, how you judge yourself?

What if in each moment, you did only what you needed to do according to how your body was feeling on that day. What if you could find the Ultimate Expression of the posture for YOU on that day in that moment?

The Ultimate Expression exists. You've seen pictures. Its Seth Morrison hucking off the cliff. Its Shane McConkey's back flip. Its Kelly Wade putting her toes on her head. Its Kate Giampapa flying Amanda in the air. Its Sharon Caplian in full extension. Its your best friend getting straight A's without studying.

The reason that an Ultimate Expression exists in yoga postures is because yoga is a life long activity. And as you age, and you continue your practice, your body changes. And over time as your body changes, you need a lamp post to head towards. A beacon. Its like a fairy light, a destination that is always moving further away as you approach it.

We in the west tend to think of the Ultimate Expression as a benchmark for how "good" we are at Yoga. A lot of us want to compare our ability to get close to the ultimate expression when we first begin our practice as a benchmark for our innate talent at yoga.

And you can be "Good" at yoga. But not because on your first day you can put your head on your knee. As one of my favorite teachers said, you aren't going to reach enlightenment when you can put your head on the floor. There's another step after that one, anyway.

You can be good at yoga because you practice the right way.

Because you have the discipline to look for your Place of Benefit and go with full commitment to that place but NOT PAST IT.

Past his place of benefit and unaware of it, most likely. The enticing goal of getting head to knee is tempting him past his place of benefit. His standing leg is bent, he has sacrificed the entire benefit of the posture for the goal of being "good" at it. Unfortunately, this is how you get hurt in yoga. You go past your place of benefit in search of victory. 

My little sister travels in the summer. She goes all over the world, and as she goes, she practices yoga. Recently, she was in Israel practicing. The studio where she had just bought an introductory week long pass was having some internet difficulty. My sister is a bit of a SEO genius. She offered to help the studio. They happily agreed. In exchange, they'd give her a free month of yoga.

Unfortunately, before they could have their first meeting, the week was expiring. My sister's yoga practice is important to her. She was worried. Would she have to find that $130 to practice for the month?

The studio told her, "Don't worry, we'll start your month and we can meet next week."

My sister asked the owner, "How do you know that's a good choice for you? What if I don't keep my end of the bargain? How can you trust me?"

The studio owner answered, "Oh, its okay, we've seen your practice. We know it will be fine."

Now, my sister has a beautiful practice. She does not go to the ultimate expression, she is a beginner. She's been doing Bikram for about a year. She tries the right way, in every posture, finding her place of benefit, all the time.

Sometimes, her place of benefit is in child's pose on the floor sitting out the posture. But this is a choice she makes by and for herself, without showing drama on her face, or pulling anyone off their mat and onto hers while she makes the choice to back off. She just sees her edge and backs off.

The amazing Sharon Caplain likes to say, "Find your edge. Look over it. Don't jump off of it."

We all want to try our hardest.  But how do you know you are trying your hardest? Can you tell because you are trembling, and sweating and breathing so hard? Maybe you are trying physically your hardest with your muscles. But there is more to practice, and more to life than that.

What if it is hardest for you to pay attention to your injury in your knee? What if its the hardest to back off in general because you had a huge day already? Do you need to announce to the world that you hiked up smuggler and then rode your bike to Basalt and back or can you just do your practice for yourself to your place of benefit on this day and let that be enough? Can you LAY DOWN YOUR EGO? And rather than being defeated by your injury, you come to class anyway and focus on how to go to your place of benefit with your knee in mind?

Now you are trying your hardest, but you aren't trembling and shaking.

Do you miss trembling and shaking? Do you like to tremble and shake because that tells the teacher you are trying hard?

What if you didn't need to tell the teacher, and everyone else in the room, with your body and your breath that you are trying your hardest? What if you just know it internally? What if you were enough for you, and your practice was about you, your health, your strength?

What if being good at yoga meant being dedicated to finding your place of benefit in each posture, according to how your body felt on that day?

Everyone to their place of benefit and no further. A room full of mindful practice. Bliss, joy and FREEDOM exist in discipline of this kind. 

Over time, when you have a dedicated yoga practice, you get popped into the big picture. You see your body evolving over time. You see that on one day, your legs are tight, and on the next, you stretch more than ever. You see your body staying the same for three weeks and suddenly opening for a week. You realize that you are never going backwards because over time, your body is changing. Internally.

Your ability to metabolize waste is changing, your patience is changing, your concentration is changing, your equanimity is changing. And your hamstrings are changing.

So you have this huge moment of relief when you realize, its not about me stretching an inch more today than I did yesterday, or an inch more than the person next to me. Its about finding excellence in the discipline to try the right way.

And when I try the right way, I am full of compassion for myself, and my body is rewarded with a safe, strengthening, liberating practice.

And then you walk off the mat and you ask yourself, where is my place of benefit today? In the office, on the hike, on the phone. It leads you back to the compassionate choice. And from here, there is security and solidity, a willingness to explore the unknown, because you can trust yourself to come from the compassionate place.

Am I in danger of becoming one of those mat-carying douche bags I see around town? Ugh. Screw it. Lets watch TV.

Last night, I was thinking about how many people end up on my massage table wishing that they felt better. They ask me, what can I do not to get these knots? Can I get better so I'm not in so much pain? Can I learn to sleep without sleep aids? What about my anxiety? Can I cure it?

I think you don't have to walk around with knots in your back. I think you can reduce your anxiety and your insomnia. But the answer to the question everyone asks (because its almost always the same question, just phrased differently) is that I don't have a pill for you to take to replace the one you are currently taking.

The ultimate in freedom or doucheyness? It depends on if you cary judgement or you make the compassionate choice for yourself. 

I can give you some relief on the table, but you have to be an active participant in your body work to get the best benefit. 

Healing your body and calming your mind is a life long process. People say "Its a life style change." And I think that's true, but I think its scary to people.

Because we are all ego-attached, our lifestyle to some extent defines our ability to desire change. If I now behave like the people that have THIS kind of lifestyle, am I going to end up being one of those mat-carrying douche bags who eat organic food and seem so superior? Can I still hold onto my conservative political views and get body work?

I think the first answer to this is that whether you carry a mat around or eat organic food does not define you as a person. We restrict what we are capable of SO OFTEN by worrying what other people will think. 

She can either be concerned about the world at large making assumptions about her carrying her mat, or she can just get her ass to class because it helps her health. She can also make assumptions about herself if she carries a mat around. Or she can just get her ass to class because that's where she heals her spine.

Before you assign yourself a regimen that is completely different from what you are doing now, and decide to turn yourself in to something you dislike because you've heard it might help; leading you to a half assed practice with one foot in the pool of a new direction and your old life holding on to your other leg... consider this.

What is the compassionate choice?

Yes, that may seem very rainbows and dolphins, but here's the thing. No one can tell what your internal life is. And if you ask yourself this question you may be surprised at the answer. Because the compassionate choice looks at the big picture. Its not "How do I feel right now?" or "I should" or "You suck if you don't" or "I can't commit to that"...leading you to slowly talking your way out of change today with the promise that once you get through your taxes and get your apartment clean you will look at options for your back pain, your lethargy, your anxiety, your insomnia.

Is it compassionate to continue doing what you are doing now? If you looked at it as other people: if you could take your decision making mind and personify it, sit it down next to you on the couch and watch it interact with the child like you that does what your Mind you tells it, it might look like this:

What would it be like if you found a place that felt like THIS when you chose not to eat another oreo, or not to drink that beer, or to go outside and walk, or to go to yoga where your back can heal?

Mind: "You are tired. You should sit here on the couch and eat chips. You can go for a walk tomorrow. Lets work up to the idea of yoga. You don't have to go today. That would be hard, and probably hot, and difficult. Maybe you should lift weights for a while to get in shape to go to yoga. That's a good idea. Drive by the gym tomorrow or the next day and see what they have."

Body: "Okay." munch munch.

Compassionate Mind: "WAIT! If you do that, you are hurting yourself! The choice you are making is ultimately painful! You will be angry that you didn't do any exercise, angry that you are incapable of making change! The anger will compound and will become a story that you begin to believe about yourself, that you just suck at this, that you have to be in pain."

Extrapolate it further. What if you could see the choice you make, the choice you allow yourself to be talked into, your Automatic Negative Thought is the same as letting yourself stay in an abusive relationship? You are being manipulated because change is scary. That which is familiar is known and therefore more welcome than the unknown of LIFESTYLE CHANGE.

Maybe that's too much of a nut to crack all at once. 

Maybe a compassionate choice is to have a little grace for the process, and let it unfold over time.

Maybe it starts with just learning to find your inner compassionate mind. The piece of you that can ask, is this the compassionate choice?

If I eat this whole pizza, momentarily satisfying my craving, or my obsession, or my compulsion, I am handing the reigns of control over to immediate gratification. And if I deny myself by saying, "THATS NOT GOOD DON'T DO IT." I will have about as much luck as my mom did trying to keep me inside my house when I was fifteen. None.

So often the part of our mind that keeps us making the same choices is a piece of our mind that asks us to be willing to be treated like this. Is this the compassionate choice? 

When we come down hard on ourselves, there is an element of judgement that keeps the gift of the new choice from feeling like a gift. We hear thoughts like "Better people can do this. This is too hard for me. If I really cared to get to my goal of not binge eating, not sitting on the couch all day, getting active, I would JUST STOP."

But we can't JUST STOP. We become attached to that which makes us feel good in the short term. And I'm talking about all of us. I'm talking about the guy with the chronic low back pain, not just the addicted eater or the chronic depressive. 

So when you allow yourself to develop that compassionate mind, you can change. You can say, I know that if I eat this whole pizza I will hate myself tomorrow. I will be angry and feel fat and know that now I have to go undo it all in the gym when I could be moving forward. I will cary guilt and shame at my lack of discipline. I will see all the fit bodies walking around who are able to control themselves, and each one of them will serve as a judgement against my ability to succeed. 

It is so much more compassionate for me to make a different choice right now. To stop wherever I am, and be grateful that I was able to listen to that compassionate mind. To listen with gratitude to the me that says, it is kinder not to eat this. 

Now, you can look at other compassionate choices. And different things work for different people. You  might start just by walking. Go outside and look around. Do you need to buy a whole yoga wardrobe and sign up for monthly unlimited and go every day?

No. You'll probably hurt yourself. That's not balanced, either. And the middle path is the compassionate path. And what the middle path looks like, the balanced path, will change as your ability to be compassionate to yourself changes. As your body changes. As what is truly important to you changes. 

It becomes easy to make the compassionate choice, even though it may lead to a difficult activity, because it feels like you caring for yourself. And a bonus of this kind of living, when you treat yourself with grace and compassion, and begin living from that place, you fill up like a vessel. And then you overflow. And THEN, you can help others make the compassionate choice, because you have energy to give. 

You are not giving from an empty, over-taxed place. You can ask, do I have this to give? Because that's the compassionate choice. Not the selfish choice. There is a difference. 

So yes. You don't have to live in pain. You don't have to be scared, and anxious, and a victim of your story. You can become whoever you were meant to become, regardless of your history, your past, your fears. 

If you really want this for yourself, starting from developing a compassionate mind will help you build a set of guidelines that make it easy for you to grow your wings and leave behind that which no longer serves you!

You are hereby UNGROUNDED.

Ethan, my 10 year old, has given me permission to talk about his experience starting a Bikram Yoga practice. Thanks, Ethan!

At the end of the school year, we were all kind of at our wit's end. I had been training my brains out and hadn't been around my kids enough. They were ready for summer, and ready for mom to be home. They both started acting out in their own way, as we do when we aren't quite happy with the status quo.

Ethan started getting in trouble, and he started getting grounded. The trouble was, he couldn't make it through one grounding before the next one started. I was frustrated, he felt like a failure, and the whole system was broken.

The trouble he was getting in was "little" trouble, but it started growing. There were small matters of integrity which started leading to larger matters of integrity. White lies snowballing. Sneaky behavior.

When I caught him yet again, we had another one of our fantastic, in depth talks which seem to lead no where and do nothing. I had already taken away his legos, his books, he'd been banned from the computer. There was nothing left to take. He was living in a jail state. And learning nothing.

I asked him, "E, how do we get you to learn to make the difficult decision because its the right decision?"

He answered me honestly. "I don't know."

Intellectually, he understood that it was important to have integrity. He understood that the desire to make the right choice needed to come from within him, rather than from fear of getting in trouble.

He was sad and frustrated and so was I. There was a rift in our trust, there was a crack in our relationship. Neither one of us wanted that break, and neither one of us knew how to fix it.

Yeah, I used to get in a lot of trouble, too.

I was in yoga one day, and I was laying in Savassana, and I thought of his little face. I remember being ten years old. I remember being in so much trouble so much of the time. I remember just waiting for my grounding to end so that I could get in more trouble for some other stupid reason like forgetting to put the toothpaste cap on.

I couldn't differentiate between the scale of the mistakes I was making because I was in so much trouble so much of the time, that trying at all seemed pointless. I remember deciding that I'd just stop climbing out my window and sneaking around and just start walking out the front door because, fuck it, I was already in trouble, what more could they do?

Obviously, by the time I came to that conclusion, I was about 13 years old and had years of never making it through a grounding or winning my parent's trust back under my belt.

I didn't want this for Ethan.

The teacher in the Bikram class I was in called for us to change, to turn around and lay on our bellies to prepare for the spine strengthening series. I was hot, tired, soggy and sad about Ethan. But I heard the instruction, and I rolled over on my tummy and prepared.

I did not show the drama on my face, I did not sigh, or grunt, or breathe. I kept an expression of calm on my face because that's what you do in yoga.

And then it hit me. All the lessons I was hoping that Ethan would learn by punishing him, he could learn right here in the yoga room.

I rushed home from class and asked him, "Hey. What if we completely unground you, give you back all of your privileges, all my trust, lets just DO OVER. But you have to come to Bikram for a month, and you have to do what the teacher says."

He looked at me. Anything was better than being grounded.

"Okay." He said.

I was worried, I was concerned that he would pull other people off of their mats with kid drama, with worry for how he was doing, if he could survive the heat, I was worried for my own practice that it would suffer because I'd be parenting him the whole time.

Yoga is part of every day for Ethan, now.

We got there early. We set up by the door. I talked to Caroline, the owner of Arjuna Yoga, who was teaching the class. She gave Ethan a camping chair to rest his back agains, I gave him my Bikram's Beginning Yoga Series Book and off we went.

Our first goal was to minimize the drama. So when it got hard, he was not to show it on his face. The tougher decision, which was the right decision, was to take care of himself. To decide if he could push through the feeling of it being hot, or hard, and either continue to try or sit in childs pose. No sighing, no calling attention. Could he be accountable for his own practice.

This turned out to be his whole practice. He came to nine classes, and after the fourth one, he was welcoming the heat. He reads the Bikram book during most of the standing series, and then joins in for as much of the floor series as he can.

He stays in the room. He takes care of his own practice. I don't practice near him, Caroline wisely asked me to let her be his teacher, since that's what I'm paying her for anyway. Ethan has come to class when I'm not there, even. He's the only 10 year old in a room full of adults, many of whom can't contain their drama. Finding equanimity when he has the desire for attention has been an incredibly powerful tool for Ethan.

After class one his behavior changed.

He continued to read the book, and started calling me in to look at passages. "Mom, here's a good example of integrity."

Ethan after his fifth class

A month later, I have to say, our experiment was a complete success. Ethan changed his behavior for and by himself through the discipline of yoga. He found freedom in the discipline. He found accountability. He found integrity. And he found the desire to let these things be driving traits on his own. The impetus is coming from the inside.

Being able to share this practice with him was incredibly powerful for me as well. I had to let him be taught by others, I had to let go of my worries and fears about the other people in the room. He was a paying member of the yoga studio, I had to let him be his own autonomous creature going through his own journey.

Ethan learned, all on his own, that he wanted to be trusted and respected for himself. He learned all on his own that life is hard, and sometimes the way through is not in taking the easy path, but in taking the right path. Not the path that looks right because its what everyone else is doing. The path that resonates internally as right because it is in line with your values, the things you strive for in your life. What an amazing lesson, what a gift to watch my own kid begin to wrap his mind around that concept.

I'm happy to say that Ethan seems to have found strength and peace of mind, we don't have any behavior issues right now since we started this crazy experiment, and our rift... well it was mended the day I asked if he wanted to go to yoga. We are closer than we've ever been, and thats because he chose to ask more of himself and I chose to let him walk that path, extending him trust even though I had thought it had been exhausted.