Stay where you are.

Monday will mark one year to the day since I set off for Goa, to begin my adventure of living and working at Purple Valley for the full season. I've already marked 6 months since I returned, so now this is another landmark which gives me cause to stop and think about the experience, or more this time about what has happened since I returned hom.

And I'm not going to lie: it has't exactly been a barrel of laughs. 

There have been lots of good things, of course, and the main one of these, the constant, is having moved in with the Frenchman immediately on my return. Although in hindsight, not going back to my home at ALL (except to collect a few bags of clothes, moving out only via the tube, and one bag at a time) probably made the transition a lot trickier than if I had at least returned to my familiar surroundings for a month or two. Though to be honest, who knows...But that's the past, and now here I am, happily cohabiting, figuring out the stuff you figure out when you're both in your 30s and trying to shape your life around another adult human with (strong) preferences and ways of living, so that's all good fun ;)

What has really been the biggest challenge for me is no less than trying to find my place in the world. yup, the biggie. I shouldn't really be surprised by this, given that, if we rewind (easy to do on this blog as the posts are so sparse!) in April 2011 I found myself not working, and instead of panicking I elected to take a "grown-up gap year" to figure out what I wanted to do next. A decade working in various roles within clothing and design businesses, but somehow never moving "up", just sideways, had left me dissatisfied, and I longed for a job that I could be passionate about - something I had probably romanticised but nevertheless I missed. I had ended up in a dead-end street and had no idea where to go next, so the etch-a-sketch approach (shake it all up and start again) seemed like the wisest move. I was toying with various ideas for re-training, going to college, moving in a completely different direction -the problem was that nothing was coming naturally to me in terms of which new direction. So my year off became instead a plan to temp, and then head to Mysore for 3 months to following Spring. And I got the reception job at the shiny yoga centre, had a bit of an existential crisis but overall was happy enough, and I got to spend time in Goa, Mysore and Thailand between January and April 2012. 

The fly in the ointment (in some ways) was being offered the Guest Manager job at PV, which happened shortly before I returned from Thailand. This is an "invited" position rather than something you apply for, so while I was flattered I was pretty sure I wasn't going to take it as, let's not forget, my plan was to come back to London and find a "proper" job. Doing something PROPER. And normal. And probably not related to yoga. But then again this seemed like such a wonderful opportunity, so after agonising a bit I accepted the role, and of course I met the Frenchman not a week later, and after over four years of being thoroughly single I fell madly in love (another fly in the ointment) but still, I left for Goa on 21st October 2012. My feeling was that if our relationship was supposed to survive, then this was as good a test as any and, thanks to regular emails, skype and a visit in February, we made it through, and when he collected me from the airport on my return we went straight back to his flat and that was that.

Work wise, I had a few shifts lined up back at shiny yoga HQ, and a gig to do some social media work part-time, so I didn't have to stress immediately. But somehow, over 6 months and several disappointing job interviews later, I am still doing these two things, and a fixed and stable job is no closer to happening. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful to have not one but two part-time jobs, and both have their benefits, but with my vata tendencies I crave a fixed routine, and really I need the discipline of having somewhere I need to be, and fixed working hours, not to mention wishing I didn't have to work evenings and weekends. So in it's own way, it's really tough. And even tougher is the disappointment that comes from having interviewed for a handful of jobs which I felt I was really well suited for, only to be told that they hired somebody they already knew, or they felt that I would get bored and move on quickly because I was very ambitious...to say nothing of the applications I have spent time on only to hear nothing back. Make no mistake, it is tough out there.

And all the while, I mostly paint on my happy face, and when people ask me if I'm going back to Goa again, or why am I not, I tell them I don't want to leave the Frenchman again, which is of course true, but really the reason is this: coming home was too fucking difficult. And it still is.

This weekend the Frenchman has been away, and I have been emailing back and forth with my beloved co-guest manager from last year as she made the long journey from Sweden to Goa to do her second season. Knowing that two out of our team of four would be returning this year makes it feel a lot harder knowing that I will not be there. It's almost surreal knowing that she is there now, as I sit in London writing this, and that she is settling in and helping to get the centre ready for the first retreat which begins next weekend. And the ways things currently stand I'm not even going to be able to afford to go and visit during the season. 

I don't use the word lightly, but I have spent the past 6 months dipping in and out of depression, and the Frenchman has had a lot of tears to put up with. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world (finances aside) for me to take off somewhere again, to have applied for Mysore or agreed to go back to Goa, rather than sticking it out here and trying to put some roots down. But at the age of 35 there are other things I want, and a stable and happy relationship is one of them, and fulfilling and satisfying work is another. Going away again would jeopardise the first one, and make the second move even further out of my reach. Even in my yoga practice (hell, this is a yoga blog afterall) I have not only stayed in one place since coming back from Goa, but my teacher took away (gradually) the new poses I had been given by various teachers during my time there, so now I am back doing primary and second through to kapotasana, and suffering on a daily basis. Clearly the universe has one big lesson for me: it's time to sit with what you have, and not run away from it again. Because how can you build anything stable when you keep moving around?

So this weekend I decided that it is time to bring an end to this navel-gazing, feeling sorry for myself, wishing things were different and being overwhelmed by the things I need to do. I spent yesterday alone, and mostly in contemplation, starting the day with my first ever castor oil bath, eating grounding foods, going for a long walk in the rain, and picking up an old favourite book of mine to read when I stopped off for coffee - Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das. And given that I had already been thinking over this blog post, and how staying still is the hardest thing, what should I read a few pages in, but this:

"...an Indian master, when asked what advice he had for Westerners seeking enlightenment, said:

'Stay where you are'  

So, for now at least, that is exactly what I intend to do.

Oh so predictable.

Despite a little bit of me (maybe a large bit of me) hoping that heading to Mysore for 2 months would lead to me blogging super-regularly, dissecting my experience and sharing it online (just in case there is anyone even still out there wondering what I have to say), it turns out it wasn't to be.

Mysore was (I say this in past tense, having left Gokulam on Friday evening after 9 magical weeks practicing at the shala with Sharath) a life-changing, mind-expanding, shape-shifting and unforgettable experience. But something about it, and something about the person I realised that I am whilst I was there, made me understand completely why oh so many people before me have headed this way and resolutely STFU once they arrived. So yes, it's a giant cliche, but it turns out that Mysore knocked the desire to blog (or indeed to read other blogs, with the exception of a select few) right out of me.

Ho hum. Now I am in heavenly Koh Samui for a week of down-time before two MORE weeks with Kino and Tim, before I head home to London and put it all back together again. Maybe at some point I'll feel the desire to start sharing my thoughts again, I'm certainly not saying that I won't, but for now this is where I am (literally and metaphorically).

So I'll just say this; over the past (nearly) three months that I have been in India I have realised that life grows ever sweeter the more you focus on just letting things happen as they should. And for now, that includes me keeping a little quiet in the blogging world. Now if you'll excuse me I need to head back out into the sunshine...life is tough, right?

Starting small

Last night I went along to a kirtan workshop which was followed by (what was described as) an open meditation class. I have been to the kirtan classes at this studio before, though not for a little while, but my efforts with meditation have up until now been limited to segments of ashtanga workshops or retreats. 

I had some doubts about going along for this class as it talked of bringing a notebook to set our intentions for the year, and the full write-up suggested to me that I might end up digging up some emotions I have been trying to avoid. Silly me, of course, in that any emotions I have been "trying to avoid" have already come to my attention, but that's another story. I love (love love) kirtan but have had some emotional responses to it in the past, and I suppose the truth is I was feeling a little too vulnerable for the full force of this at the moment. So I realised - what better time to face up to it?

I hadn't booked after calling in the afternoon to be told there was no need, but arrived (late) to discover that the room was already over capacity (it takes 35 people, they had already allowed 41 in) and there were three others waiting (and another lady arrived just after me). I tried to hide my disappointment but the manager was upstairs seeing what she could negotiate, and happily came down 5 minutes later saying it was OK, we were all in....so rather than having "too many" people there, we ended up with a fabulously well-attended roomful of like-minded souls ready to welcome in the new year :)

The bolsters and blankets were set up in a double horseshoe in the room facing the lovely teacher leading the chant (with harmonium and drummer standing by) with several rows of people behind on each side, and those on chairs lining each wall, but as I love to be surrounded by sound I was happy to spot a free space right in the middle of the second row and tip-toed in just as the first chant was about to begin. And of course I had nothing to fear... 

The sound was incredible, on a usual Saturday class there are around 12 people, so with 4 times that many I couldn't hear my own (admittedly horse) voice; I was not a drop in the ocean, I was the ocean. And the experience was incredible too - and indescribable. Thoughts rose to the surface; vivid memories of walking with a former love in his home-town, instead of banishing the painful memory I allowed it to surface, I let it sit there, I let it rise up and float free. I felt my heart swell, I cracked it wide open. I made space for those I want to send loving energy to. I set my intention to send healing energy to the person in my life who needs it the most. I felt love. And then when the kirtan was over, the meditation class began (and my fear...). But again, there was nothing to fear; the teacher talked a little about our posture, about meditation techniques. He explained a meditation technique as "the car you drive to the temple - but you still have to get out of the car and enter the temple". He told us that we would be meditating with the mantra om namah shivaya. 

He continued to speak for a little while after telling us to begin, and I found myself wishing he would stop talking so that I could really focus. He stopped talking. I repeated the mantra. I had an enormous coughing fit and had to take a drink of water, conscious of the disturbance to those around me. I put the bottle down, immediately regretting not drinking more and convinced that the tickle in my throat was so bad that I was going to throw up. I repeated the mantra. I noticed that people around me were beginning to fidget. I felt pride that I was sitting completely still. I repeated the mantra. I started to wonder how long this was going on for. Maybe I could sneak a look at the clock - but it was behind me. I repeated the mantra. I found some stillness and let the mantra slip away. My mind wandered, I brought back the mantra. I wondered again if we would be doing this for half the class and something else for the second half - we weren't really just going to sit for 45 minutes uninterrupted were we? I repeated the mantra. I wondered what sort of value for money it is to pay £12 for a class where you sit in silence? I repeated the mantra. I noticed the fidgeting around me again. I felt proud (again) for staying still. And then it was over.

And that was the whole class! I actually sat for 45 minutes - UNBELIEVABLE!! Considering my previous attempts have hit a maximum of about 10-15 minutes, this was quite a big difference. And when he suggested that we take a few moments to reflect on our experience, my overriding feeling was this: I sat and judged other people. "Listen to them fiddling and fidgeting while I sit here nice and still." Not exactly a great emotion (hello ego!) but at least I recognised that I was doing it. But as I walked out of the class and took the hour-long journey home, I felt still and calm with a clear head. Reading my very most favourite book on the way home (Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das - which I started reading again over Christmas) certainly helped keep my mind focussed, and getting up to practice this morning I still felt calm and centred - and practice today was deliciously focused. All of which made me realise that meditation is something I really really need to find the time for in my daily life. My plan? To cut down the (enormous) amount of time I spend online, and replace it with this much healthier activity. And over post-yoga breakfast today a plan was made to start attending monthly meditation workshops, which should give me the support and motivation to start sitting regularly. 

So happy New Year everyone, here's to a calm and balanced 2011, whatever your intentions may be! :)

2010 and the Primary Series: my year of yoga

Well well, it’s New Year’s Day so it must be time for a clichéd look back at last year...(well, if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?!)

This time last year I was at the airport preparing to fly off to Goa. It was to be my second trip to Purple Valley, this time to study with Noah Williams, and I was well aware that my practice had been shaky at best in the preceding weeks. It was only in November that I went back to a teacher after about three months break from my formal practice, and even then I was making it once or twice a week at best (and hadn’t practiced at all over Christmas). Arriving in Goa I found that around half of the group were beginners to ashtanga and so were taking a daily led class with Noah – leading them to believe that everyone in the early class was “advanced”. Not so, said I; true that I was confident to practice mysore style, but I was very definitely one of the beginner-est of the self-practitioners. It didn’t take long for me to get very dissatisfied and disillusioned with where I was at with my practice. I practiced up to bhujapidasana at that point, and was convinced that I was the ONLY person in the history of ashtanga EVER to be stuck at that point (oh yes, it was definitely “my special unique problem” – or one of them!). Trying to talk to Noah about it for some reassurance he basically said that I hadn’t been practicing for very long, and that given that I’d taken a three month break it was like going back to the beginning again. Which was really NOT what I wanted to hear (but was basically true). It was as impossible to balance in UHP as it had always been in my early days. I still couldn’t get into a headstand unaided. And needless to say, bhuja seemed impossible and I still wasn’t getting any new postures – despite the fact that others around me were. I kept a little notebook while I was there, much of which is filled with my frustrations. But towards the end of my stay something occurred to me. I was frustrated with my practice when I hadn’t actually been practicing. Duh!! And here I was, having practiced 6 days a week for 2 weeks (I even practiced the morning after spending the middle Saturday in bed having been very sick, India stylee), right at the start of the new year. I had a realisation that I couldn’t bitch about my practice until I actually made an effort to establish a regular practice. And having always been rather keen on that “fresh start” feeling of a new year, I couldn’t help but see it as my new challenge: 2010 and the Primary series. Somehow it just felt right, 2010 has a rounded feel to it, and to me it felt like the perfect opportunity to really give this thing my best shot.

Coming back to England I was determined to start getting to the shala more often. I documented my early attempts on this blog of course, but my plan was to build it up slowly so that it was sustainable, rather than coming back all guns blazing and reaching burnout after a few weeks. Starting with Sundays (that was the easiest day to get there for me) I started adding one more weekday at a time. By early February I reported having “made it” to practice on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday (having skipped Monday and Tuesday because I’d almost had a mental breakdown being adjusted in triang mukha on the Sunday!!) and had started to make the connection that my body actually felt better (less sore) when I practiced than when I didn’t.

In March I travelled to Edinburgh for my first workshops with Kino, and had my first major breakthrough of the year: an unassisted headstand. It arrived magically at the end of a led class (possibly my third ever attempt at full led primary I think?), accompanied by full-on tears and violent shaking, but happily on returning home from the workshop it was mine to keep forever. On summarising the weekend with Kino I found that I had made peace with my practice exactly where it was, writing the post on a Saturday evening before bed. And so what happened the following day? Not twelve hours later I was with my teacher, who saw fit to give me the long-awaited next two poses: kurmasana and supta kurmasana. Talking to her afterwards she said that sometimes as a teacher you can just feel a “space that has opened up” – in other words, as soon as I let go of grasping for the next pose, it was right there waiting for me.

My journey with supta kurmasana was a painful one (both literally and figuratively). It involved a painful shoulder injury, visits to an osteopath, a long period of completely backing off, probably a lot of blogging, a HUGE amount of discussion, and finally the breakthrough I’d been waiting for came in July when I bound my hands all by myself for the first time. A quick review of my posts between March, when I was given supta k, and July (when I became able to get into it alone) reveal a huge amount – ha! I'm surprised myself by my level of honesty on this blog sometimes! But during these months I experience first hand how the practice can bolster you through difficult times when I lost my grandmother; I learned what happens when your teacher goes awaypermalink somewhere?!); and perhaps most significantly I ramped up my practice during this period to hit the elusive 6 day week – and immediately noticed the changes in my practice.

Then in August, all in the space of one week I was told that my company was probably going to fold (and I would be losing my job), I got two massive parking tickets, and I was given garbha pindasana. Wow thanks universe, anything else?! Garbha turned out to be a total bugger for me, and once the crazy bruising died down I had a good few months (in fact up until late November) of being able to get my arms right through but only being able to rock on the spot without getting beached. September brought baddha konasana (the day I was given it I wrote “I have a feeling this asana will bring both joy and pain” – oh how f’ing right I was!) which fast developed into my LEAST.FAVOURITE.ADJUSTMENT. EVER. But after only a few days of getting used to it, in early September came upavistha konasana. And at this pointi began to freak out that the end of primary was hurtling towards me like an unstoppable train. I was right, and the rest of primary was rolled out for me pose by pose until on the first anniversary of my first ever visit to my teacher, I was given setu bandhasana. A few weeks of getting used to this and then, a few weeks before Christmas, we started working on dropbacks. So in a sense, that was it: I set out to devote 2010 to the primary series, and in that time (completely unexpectedly), I reached the end of primary. Of course these are just the bare bones of the story, and I may now be practicing full primary on a daily basis, but the reality is that I still have so much to learn. 

And perhaps the most important thing I have to learn is balance. Because in devoting my year to my ashtanga practice, I managed to neglect a whole lot of other stuff along the way. I didn’t go on a single date. I certainly didn’t throw myself into my work (even though I now have a shiny new job). I became appallingly bad at replying to messages from friends and became a whole lot more flaky (and likely to cancel plans with friends) than I ever was before. I definitely ended up sleep deprived. But would I change the past year? No, of course not, but what it makes me realise is this: choosing to devote yourself to one thing almost always means that other things get missed out. And I know for sure I want to experience this whole rich tapestry, not to look back on my life and think “well, at least I could bind supta kurmasana by myself”. This (once again) is certainly not the post I set out to write, but I now realise with perfect clarity that the challenge turned out not to be “establishing a daily practice” or “moving through the primary series”, oh no. The real challenge, now that I have achieved (horrible word) both of those things, is to integrate my practice into my real life, and to have a bit more of a life. And something tells me this is going to be my toughest challenge yet.

Work life balance

So it’s time to confess as to what’s been going on off-the-mat.

In August I started talking about some “uncertainty” which had cropped up in my life. At that point my boss had told a colleague and I that in all likelihood that our company would cease to exist within the next couple of months (or in the very least, our division of it). I won’t go into huge detail because it’s not very interesting, but I work for a clothing supplier – we are the intermediary between high street stores and factories in India, Turkey, Bangladesh and Hong Kong (or more accurately, we deal with agents in those countries, who then deal with the factories). So there are a lot of people in the loop! If you stop and think about what an average garment costs in a high street store, consider that the retailer puts between a 50% and 85% markup on the price THEY pay us for it (and that figure’s a lot more for designer clothing, I’m talking about cheap high street stores), and then consider that everybody in the chain needs a piece of the pie...you can imagine how little the factories earn. Anyway I digress, the fact is, times are tough out there and the stores want cheaper prices. So it’s starting to make sense for them to work directly with agents in the countries producing the goods. I suppose eventually they will cut that out too and deal directly with factories, but what it means is that even if things pick up in our company soon, the industry has fundamentally changed and it would only be a short reprieve.

The upshot of this was that my boss quietly suggested we go away and “see what’s out there”. It was kind of him to forewarn us, I for one had no idea the situation was that bad until he took us for coffee and came out with it, and this is when I went into my “intrigue” stage where I felt sure that something would come up. And guess what?

Scouting around on the internet looking for vacancies (and this complicated by the fact I was looking to change the field I work in), a seemingly random chain of thought led me to the website for a brand I remembered from the trade shows I used to work at in my previous job. And what do you know? They were advertising a job that looked right up my street. So I applied, and then found it impossible to apply for anything else, as nothing else hit the mark like this one did. But it turned out that the person managing the recruitment was away on annual leave, so I had to try and be patient (can you guess that I failed?!). A few weeks ticked by, and then I was invited for an interview. All seemed to go very well, there was lots of laughter, I thought I detected that they liked me, and was thrilled when one of the interviewers told me that I had “good energy”. I did however discover that the job involved a lot more travel that I had understood, and would mean driving to visit customers probably 4 days in every week. Did I mention I am kind of afraid of driving? Also it goes without saying, a heavy travel schedule would seriously affect my ability to get to the shala every day to practice. Add to this the fact that although I worked in sales for a designer for 5 years, the sales part of my role was almost a sideline alongside running the office and doing a million and one other things. I have never been a straight-forward sales rep (in fact the idea of it used to make me cringe!), I have no idea whether I’ll be any good at it...though I like to think I will be. They suggested I think very carefully about whether I would be prepared to make the changes in my life that the job would involve. I nodded and smiled but I really wasn’t sure.

And then I stepped out into the sunshine, got straight on the phone to my Mum and filled her in on what it would involve. “Oh no, you wouldn’t want to be doing that,” she said. But before I realised I meant it, I started to say that maybe I could...that how can you ever get over the fear of something if you never try it? I was using direct experience from my yoga practice to understand that I have gone from being someone who said “I will NEVER stand on my head. NEVER!” to being someone who does it every day, has found peace there, and actually enjoys it. Surely is this applies to a seemingly impossible yoga posture, it applies to everything else too? So after thinking about it for a few more days I emailed my interviewers and told them that I had given it careful thought, and while the prospect would certainly be a challenge, it was one that I was very excited about. And as for my mum’s concern of “But you wouldn’t be able to go to your yoga!” I quickly realised that not going ahead with a job application because it might interfere with my shala practice would be COMPLETELY missing the point. At that point I let go of my attachment to going to the shala every day, and it was only in doing that that I was able to write the email as I did.

I won’t bore you with all the details but I waited a few weeks, took a psychometric test, read the emailed results with great interest, watched and waited as my current role shrank away to almost nothing, and then with great relief last week attended a second interview, which began with me being told that I was being offered the job. Ha! We then proceeded to spend several hours going through the results of the psychometric test so that they could ascertain “how best to work with me, because everybody is different.” My new boss also suggested that as it seemed a lot of my good qualities come from my yoga, that it was very important that I schedule my appointments AROUND MY YOGA!! Now, although she’s said this, I still have in mind that my daily routine will cease to exist, and my shala attendance may become more sporadic. But that’s OK, I have come to terms with that (at least in theory), but how amazing is to have an employer who fully supports your pursuit of a daily yoga practice?

Having been given a contract on the spot I was able to go straight back to work and hand in my resignation. As I explained to my boss the lovely eco/ethical credentials of my new employer, he nodded as if he’d seen it coming. He explained that he has realised months ago that it “wasn’t very good karma” for me to go to yoga every morning and then come in to work and shout at Indian factories all day (because sadly that is the reality of my current role...). Instead I am to work for a splendidly lovely Scandanavian company who have a large section on their website dedicated to corporate social responsibility – in fact, it seems to be the thread running through the whole company. They are involved in several specific projects including building and completely supporting a school in Burma, working with former streetkids in Delhi and say on their website: 

We do not think we can save the whole world. But we are proud of this project, and we believe that no one can help everyone but everyone can help someone.

This makes me happy. It helps that I really believe in the products I’m going to be selling too, and that business is booming, even in these tough times! I am still waiting for a lot of the details to understand what I will be doing, which areas I will be covering and how the job actually works, but I do know this: In three weeks time I leave my job. I have a few days off to prepare and then I am off to Yoga Thailand for a retreat which, happily, I booked and paid for before I knew that my job was hanging in the balance. When I get home from Thailand I will start my new job. Exciting times! But - can you sense a “but” coming on?

BUT – all of this is making it incredibly difficult to BE in the present moment. I just want to finish my crappy boring job and move on. I want to be in Thailand! I want to know more details about my exciting new job! And whaddya know? My practice has gone nuts on me too. I had a mini meltdown over garbha today (another one!) and came out of the mysore room whining to my teacher that “I hate it!”. I feel kind of crazed half the time, I am getting irritable and angry more than normal, my temper is frayed. I spent all last week feeling dizzy and like I was about the float away – self diagnosing that I had too much Vata I spent the week eating heavy and warm things, lots of Indian food, and now I feel heavy and lethargic (I think I took it too far!). I know, I know, that this time will zip by and that all the things I want will come to pass sooner rather than later. But my impatience is getting the better of me! And I think this was the problem with garbha today...I recognised from what Kino taught in her workshop that I think I should be able to do it NOW just because I want to. But we all know it doesn’t work like that! If a friend was telling me all of this I would be saying that three weeks is nothing, this time will pass, and just to breathe and take each moment as it comes. Funny how easy it is to be wise on someone else’s behalf, and so impossible on your own, isn’t it? But at least this is true: I trusted that the universe would provide, and it did. Now I just need to accept that the universe is spinning this out on it’s own schedule, that this is not something I can control, and I just need to let things move along at normal speed.

P.s. I’ll tell you who the company are once I’m actually there (or when they’ve taken the ad for my job down off the website!!)