What Now? This Now.

We all have ways of heading for safety.  Some, healthy, some not so healthy.

But I have found throughout my life, that because people do not change (or even want to) at the same rate, those of us who are spiritual seekers are often left feeling criticized or alienated.

It’s all about the mirror.  Growth doesn’t always beget growth.  So if I grow, the mirror I hold up may be that someone else hasn’t and they may not want to see that reflection.  But instead of viewing it clearly, a reaction can come at me which is hard and critical.

This is why we need our practices.  This is why we need to find people we can trust who can genuinely hear us, see us, and be with us no matter how ugly we feel, no matter how beautiful we feel.

There are many people who have honed the skill of being nurturers.  But it is our job to make ourselves feel safe no matter how deep or rough the waters.

*

When I began this blog, just about a week before, Desirée Rumbaugh had asked me what I was going to do if I couldn’t practice asana.

I knew that I was heading into unknown territory.  Just days before bones being broken and reconstructed, and nearly half a year of not being able to walk, I did something which Ian Casey Douglas had asked if any woman could do.  He wanted to know if a woman could do the following sequence:  Sirsanana II, Kukkutasana, press up into Adho Mukha Vkrsasana in Padmasana and hold.  I had tried it once or twice to understand his inquiry and once I was in kukkutasana I fully understood the challenge.  

While I was with Desirée, and while I was facing the biggest life change which was about to approach, the deepest task of letting go of who I was, she spoke about “laghima,” or “lightness” and on that morning, I looked over at a woman who was so light in her skin and thought about Ian’s query.  I decided to try the sequence.

I moved from one pose to the next with complete ease and pressed up into the handstand without any trace of effort.  And then I just stayed there and reveled for a while.  Knowing.  Just knowing that would be it.  At that point, I did not know I had two more surgeries ahead of me (nor three which were recommended).  At that point, I did not know I would end up with a titanium plate in my neck.  Could I try the sequence again?  Sure.  Would it be wise?  No.  Not at all.

There are some moments in life when we are asked to give up everything we know.  And it is a tall order.  One day I was with Desirée, practicing joyously and diligently, and just a few days later, my bones were being broken and repaired so that I could begin to heal something that had been broken long ago due to a very violent accident.  

*

Today, I feel I am experiencing a very similar moment.  Perhaps I am not alone.

I have been looking for a job for about a year.  I am forty-five years old and I have let go of so much of my identity many times now.

What I have begun to see is that others look at me and they often see someone who is sad or unhappy.  I reject that reflection.  

What I know about myself is something truly magnificent and something which can only be learned through experience:  I know how to navigate my own emotional terrain with great skill.  I don’t need anyone to rescue me from my pain.  I only need to walk through it.  Because that is what I know how to do: carefully, skillfully, and without abandoning myself.

When my father left his body, nearly 20 years ago, I used to rub my solar plexus during the days and weeks after his passing, continually.  And in every situation I was presented with, whether it was too loud or people were being insensitive, I chose to leave the environment in order to care well for my heart, whether it was for a few minutes or for the rest of the evening.

It’s amazing to me that I have to remind myself of this.  But I must.  Because the only person who can allow us to feel safe is us.  We enter a space creating that for ourselves and we leave it nurturing it the same way (or we leave it unskillfully, at times).  

*

I will NEVER forget those days I was with Desiree.  Who would I be on the other side?  I knew I would be forever changed.  And still, that is the case.  To let go of everything you know yourself to be is a very tall order.  Others expect you to still be the same person.  

Ram Dass explains that surrender is letting go of the resistance to what is.  

We all have our comfortable socks.  But shedding an old skin and stepping out of it, no matter if we know where we are going or not, to me, if far more compelling and inspiring than stepping into my old socks.  

Maybe I just know how to “be with” the crappiness of not knowing.  For who am I to say I have the answers?  Did Nietzche have the answers?  Kierkergaard?  I was lucky enough to survive every single thing I have survived. From a near fatal accident at the age of six, which left me unconscious for many days, to 4 major surgeries in a period of 2 years, and 2 minor ones in the same amount of time.  From being a top athlete to losing 20 pounds of muscle... from love to loss.  Over and over and over and over.  Just like so many of us.  I do not have the answers.  

Except to say that our greatest task is to “be with” what is.  Not let others tell us who we are.  But to listen.  To listen so deeply that we know ourselves.  To rub our solar plexus and leave a room if we must no matter the consequence.  

To know how to find our feet so that we can re-enter, steady and safe even if we are no longer the same person who once entered long ago.  But ready to enter because we are ready.  Knowing who we are in this NOW moment.  Fully aware that we can give from here.

Now.

Blessings upon entering your now.

11.25.13

Jill Bacharach 

Learning Something New

Three years ago, at this exact time of the year, I was deep into a training with my teacher Christina Sell when I vividly recall doing a pose which she referenced back to the 80s aerobics craze.

What it evoked inside of me was the ways in which so many of us were brainwashed into thinking “no pain no gain” and how so many of us were running ourselves ragged to workout!

We were on our first side, (so unbelievably reminiscent) on the opposite forearm, our legs and hips stacked one above the other and Christina asked us to lift the top leg.  Now, the incorrect way to do this would be to lift the leg by using the leg muscles.  What she was asking us to feel was the engagement of the gluteus minimus.  One of the muscles which engages the hip area (I know, so sorry, Teach).  

I had been about six months out of my first of 3 hip surgeries and I knew I was doing the  lift correctly, because my hips were far from pleased.  

Now, 4 major surgeries later, and two minor ones.  I have been off of my mat (hence the name of my blog) for about 16 months because my body has not called for any asana and it has required so much healing (which has required very deep listening).  

At this threshold crossing, remembering this potent time of the year, and what it asks of me and of others, my dear and cherished friend asked me to practice with her.  It seemed an auspicious offering.  

With so much of my teacher’s technical expertise in my back pocket through years of study,  and so much time of deep attunement to my body’s wisdom, I knew I would be able to trust myself no matter what.

The teacher who taught the class we attended is someone who is very beloved to me and someone whom I watched become an extraordinary teacher with a very tender heart and with whom I knew both my body and heart would feel safe with due to her level of mastery and her whole-hearted kind spirit.

What I found was that I had no expectation of what would come.  And subsequently (aside from my personal reality speaking up and saying, “Wow, this is tiring!”),   everything was all there.  I didn’t push anything.  But without wanting something, and without waiting for it, if it is inside of you, it is simply inside of you.  (Please do not misunderstand.  I am in no way discounting the importance of practice.  I could surely use some practice!)

Now, I know that every muscle in my body will be sore in two days.  I do know that.  But it was a really good lesson for me when I look back to the insane ways I behaved in the 80s.  “Burn burn burn!  Can’t miss a day” mentality.  

I don’t know when I will begin practicing asana again.  And I saw how horrible my hamstrings felt in my first uttanasana to how delicious they felt several uttanasanas in.  Which was amazing!  Reminding me again of what Christina has so often spoken about. I apologize for how I may be reckless with the eloquence of her words.  But she has explained how for a flexible person, many poses just come so easily for them.  But for a person who is stiff, they are often working much harder on the same yoga poses.  No moral judgment intended, just an observable truth.

*

Getting back to myself, I think what happened holds very powerful meaning for me.  If I were to want or wait for or desire something, I can see that it may just take the deepest act of listening.  

My body knew what to do because it had learned it all before.

*

I learned something else today.  

*

I haven’t missed practicing asana.  My body has been informing me of what it has needed all along.  Recovering from surgeries has been very challenging.  And losing massive amounts of weight and not feeling physically strong has taken a large toll on me in more ways than I wish to share.

But I learned in a very visceral way that because I was ready, and because my body knew what to do, my body began to settle my heart in a way I have been calling for, for a very long time.  

We have all heard (and even studied in most texts) that the yoga is the doorway.  Well, after so much injury.  So many surgeries.  So much heartbreak.  So many ways of finding my way back to myself....

I actually experienced something, though taxing, and challenging, which settled my heart, during what for me, is a time of year, which brings me to my knees before god in great despair, calling for a way to piece myself back together.  

I no longer think that is the approach.  I see that when something is already inside of you, it never leaves you, even if it has been surgically removed, replaced, altered, etc.

With deep and profound gratitude, I thank all of my teachers for bringing me to this moment.

9.14.13

Jill Bacharach

The Nuance of "Now"

“Love isn’t just those words we said, it’s something that we do.”

I have been expecting and praying for a healing to come in a very precise and particular way.  But I have come to realize that I have been hurting myself in doing so and that it is not advisable to go about it your life like that.  Life is terribly unpredictable and we all know that we can control very little of what happens in our lives.  The only thing we have control over is how we choose to respond to what happens.  And that often takes enormous skill and courage and humility and deep digging in.

I have wished and wanted and needed to heal something so deeply painful inside of me for much of my life.  And there is just no way to wash it over with one brushstroke.  

But I realized that there is deep power in listening and watching the subtlety of behavior.

It may not be the exact behavior I have been seeking for a decade which has truly felt like forty years (and I have lived forty-five years now, so I have some idea of what forty years feels like), but healing simply doesn’t come that way.  

Healing comes in the power of surrendering to the nuances of now.  Not in feeling overpowered by the past.  

A tiny little kindness comes and something starts to heal.  It may not be an correction of the past, but it may be a correction of now.  

No longer bound to my idea of how I must find my way to healing, I am finally beginning to see that.  I feel that.  I am overwhelmed by it.  

The past has hurt me so much but what if you are blind to who is standing before you speaking the words, “I’m here.”  “I’m listening.”  

What if that is enough?  What if that is all there is?  All there will ever be?  What if that is the doing and the undoing.  What if that is the healing?

I wouldn’t want to miss it.  

I’m here.

I’m listening.

Now.

Right now.

So

I 

can 

heal.

May we all get out of the way enough to try to do the same.

8.14.13

Jill Bacharach

Watercolors

Yesterday I visited the Brooklyn Museum and had the time of my life.  On exhibit was a show of John Singer Sargent’s Watercolors.  It was magic!  I felt joy erupting inside of me in ways that had been at rest for a long time.  A fellow spectator was upset that a bulb had blown out making a particular painting just slightly more challenging to view in its full and utter brilliance.

At one point I felt like I was going to begin weeping.  I could barely contain my feelings.  The paintings were so alive in me and so familiar and I wasn’t sure why.  I was deeply uncertain of the precise reason behind their familiarity to me.  Was it because I had seen these paintings before or because I had seen these sites and/or fallen so deeply in love with both?  I was overcome.

Overcome.

I had lived in Florence 25 years ago.  How remarkable is that?  It was there that I had grown many aspects of my own self simply by being and living there.  Not knowing the language but being immersed in it.  Not knowing the city, but needing to find my way around it.  Not knowing anything about traveling in a foreign country, but finding Italy so magnificent.  

It was there that I fell in love with my solitude.  

It was there that I fell in love Churches.  With Cathedrals .  With art.  With things I didn’t understand.  With sites which are now tattooed in my memory.  Places I know I could probably walk directly to and find again without a map.  

So as I stood in front of a painting either I had seen before, or a city or site I had visited and found so breathtaking, a woman next to me said, “You should go to Florence.”

I had thousands of thoughts all at once from funny to tragic to angry to sardonic.  I thought about the people who really had money like the Rockerfellers and the families for whom it was a sport to ask, “Where will you be ‘summering?’”  And how her comment would translate in an Edith Wharton novel as “One must always find a way to visit Florence in one’s youth!”  

I thought “Are you paying for the trip?”  I thought “How lucky am I that I LIVED on Via di Ginori and could take myself back there anytime I want?”  I thought “Florence lives inside of me.”  I thought “I am going to be buried there (unless I have my Will changed).”  I thought “What an ignorant thing to say.”  I thought “Bless you for saying that.”  My thoughts went on and on and on and on.  

I said nothing to this woman even though I spoke to many many onlookers.  Those of you who know me, probably find the latter part of that statement extremely hard to believe!  (Especially Madge!)  Many of us were overcome by the beauty of the work.  Just absolutely overcome.  So much so, it was as if we needed to lay down underneath a parasol.  

Again, why was this work so familiar to me?  Had I been with his paintings at the Uffizi (I don’t think so)?  It seemed that the Boston Museum owns most of them.  Or had the places I loved been living so deeply inside of me that seeing them come alive brought a part of me back which, all these years was only a beautiful but distant memory?

I just don’t know.

But nevertheless, how beautifully and wonderfully evocative to uncover this memory chest.  

That time in Florence was the loneliest and happiest time of my youth.  I grew myself and was so happy even as the rain poured down on my face for the first three weeks of my time there.  I was happy.  

The souls of some of the most remarkable people were alive in the cracks between the cobblestone streets and in the silences in the gigantic Duomo you could hardly see all the way up inside of.  I walked the same streets that Michelangelo walked and I felt his worn feet beneath my own.  Hundreds and hundreds of years of history crept into my heart as I found my way through my youth there.  And I am so grateful to be reminded of how much it is still alive in me.  

Thank you, John Singer Sargent, for bringing that life back to me.

2.22.13

Jill Bacharach

More is More

I was reading an article today about an actor who is leaving a show which I love and who will now be replaced by another actor in the play.  This is protocol in the world of theatre. But I had many feelings about it.  Deep ones.  I paused.

Somewhere around 1954 or 1955, Shirley MacLaine, who was the understudy in "The Pajama Game" thought she would never ever get to go on for the unstoppable lead, Carol Haney.  And the very night she was running late to the theater because of a late subway train (the same night she had planned on giving her notice), she was asked to go on (due to Carol badly hurting herself), having never rehearsed the part, never been fitted for a costume, a series of nevers which turned quickly into a life-changing beginning of her career because of who was in the audience that infamous night.  And just like that, she was offered her first film role and the rest was history.  The story is more compelling and more breathtaking than this, but I am trying to be concise.

I am not thinking of this "replacement" like Shirley's good fortune, although perhaps I should.  I should be blessing this man his good fortune.  I am aware that I feel personal loss.  Like when our teacher is out and we are struck with loss and surprise and have to quickly work ourselves out.  Like when a friendship fails and you see that old friend just happily moving on with her life.  Or dare I say it, Divorce.  And then re-marriage.

Being replaced.

From one announcement in Variety to re-marriage.  What a synapse!

But when I saw how quickly that synapse fired because I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my beloved cast-member.  I realized the most important thing of all.

No one is replaceable.

Not a dog.  Not a cast-member.  And most certainly not a loved one.

People may behave in ways which make it look as though you have been replaced.  But to use one of Oprah's sayings, here's what I know for sure:

Love lives inside of us.  As do the people we love.

One way of relating may be to address how much a person reminds you of another.  But no two people are the same.  Everyone leaves an imprint and even if it is a choice to sever ties, that person cannot be replaced.  It is not possible.  In fact, it is delusional.

Love is a unique and powerfully intimate force between people which cannot be mimicked.  It can be nurtured and honored and remembered in the most beautiful of ways, even if you are alone in that memory.  But a spirit does not die nor can it be killed. It is a choice to allow it close or near.

So when the understudy brings the house to its feet, we can applaud and celebrate without fear that Ms. Haney is on her way out.

There is room for us all.

It reminds me of what Geeta Iyengar said: "Somebody asked me a while back how I felt being under the shadow of my father and I said instantly, 'I am not under his shadow but under the light.'"

I am glad I caught myself today when I found myself feeling sad that the actor I love was being replaced and then thought of divorce, re-marriage, etc.  The whole process happened at lightning speed.  I thought of Shirley.  I thought of how the new actor's life could change.  I didn't think neurotically as to why my actor was leaving ("What if he has the Big C?"), in fact, I thought abundantly about an opportunity he must have been offered.  And then I looked into it, and sure enough, yes!  He flew to the South of France yesterday for what will be a period of 5 months to do a film with a very famous director. Mazal Tov!

There is room for us all.

And hopefully, within that room, we can lift each other up by seeing and standing in our own and each other's light whether together or apart.

I'm going to lift the shades so that I can let some more light into this room and make room for more.

7.9.13

Jill Bacharach

Trust

Trust.  The most common platitude is to say trust is something which must be earned.  

Of course.  It is like laying your heart in a person's hands.  You don’t do that with just anyone.  

I have made many mistakes trusting my heart with people who have subsequently, betrayed me.  Not just once.  But many many many times.  I don't hate myself for it.  I feel sad for every misstep.  I feel compassion for the place in my heart that went directly there, directly back there and found myself hurt again.  I cannot promise myself it won't happen again.  No one is a guarantee.  We all make mistakes and even the best of us have our worst moments.  

When we first enter relationship with another, we do not know what our will is going to be with that person.  What does god have in store for us?  What will the alchemy be?  How will the karma run its course?  The only thing we can know and be responsible for is what gets triggered within ourselves and learn how to navigate those waters.  And hopefully, figure out how to successfully not hurt the person standing before us.  

The irony of being of a yogin is that you see and experience all kinds of people cross your path, literally and figuratively cross your truest, deepest, intimate and most personal path.  And if committed to the path, you are asked to work very hard to tolerate intolerance, accept those who judge and criticize, have compassion for those who do not have compassion, make space for those who are insensitive and blatantly selfish.  And it goes on and on like this.  The work is endless.  So when I find myself white- knuckling the dental chair, and my dentist has to remind me to breathe, I get to have a good laugh at myself and herein lies one of many ironies. 

It was demonstrated beautifully (and comically) on the "Helsinki" episode of VEEP when Amy asked the VP "Are you Okay, Ma'am?"  And her response was, "Ah, No. Would it be so hard for people not to be assholes?"

The work is endless.

Trust.

It can be an act of FAITH.  To lay your heart in another’s hands.  "I ask you to hold my heart with care."

But it is also an act of compassion.  And ultimately, after much learning, it can be held in a balanced way as an act of WISDOM.  Not the vigilant response of “I will never trust you again based on all of the ways you have hurt me in the past and have now informed how I should NOT trust you,” but a slow evolution of having learned from the past and re-learning how to trust based on healing, if healing can occur or if you are blessed to have experienced a healing.  

I could spend a lot of time on this last piece, but that is for another day.  Because healing takes the time that it takes.  For today, I wish to be hopeful and believe that if two people come to one another with full and utter honesty, then I believe that without any veil of hiding, trust can be rebuilt.

I have hope.

Trust is also a test of character.

Stepping into unfamiliar or what may feel like emotionally unsafe terrain, and navigating yourself in such a way that you know how to take your seat, so much so that it can be unwavering no matter what is thrown at you.  

No matter.  

No matter how grossly inaccurate a description may come at you with no need to argue or defend or clarify because you know yourself and can stand there without feeling even remotely knocked over, is what I know about trusting oneself.

Once that is there, the ugliest reflections can be tossed your way, and there is simply no reactivity.  You simply know it is coming from another place.  You can look at the reflection and recognize, even take ownership of the shadows which you inhabit or inhabit you.  But you know a larger truth.  That you aren’t in those words.  Words coming from a stuck place which reside inside of another.  Who you know yourself to be is inviolate.  

Again, back to the yogin: accepting and making room to love and know that some people need to lash out, that some people need to judge before they can settle.  Some people simply may never be comfortable with the whole of you no matter how much all you do is unpretentiously, unwaveringly and straightforwardly try to love them the best way you know how.  

Some of us are so eager to want to change another person in order to fit them into our lives (because that would just be more comfortable).  But what we really need to do is to hear each other.  And listening takes tremendous courage.  It often means cleaning up past hurts.  In my opinion, we tend to not trust each other based on the past experiences which have informed us of who the other is and how we think that person may behave again.  

Hurt leaves scars.  Healing takes real intention and repeated showing up to allow those scars to fade.

So in my opinion, without the help of a skilled coach or a professional, it is a true act of faith and wisdom, a testimony to love, compassion and hope, a test of character, and a true sign if you can achieve it, of sheer and utter surrender, of laying your heart wide open to risk again.  

To trust is a risk.  To risk is to risk failure.  But to close yourself off to what is in your heart is one of the greatest risks of all.

7.2.13

Jill Bacharach

No Matter How Long It Takes

I’m not certain that I will ever understand betrayal.  I have been trying to understand it much of my life, but it may take me many more trips around the sun to fully grasp and comprehend that which causes one heart to betray another.

I have spent nearly a decade not writing, not speaking, almost to the point of becoming mute, for the sake of not wanting to betray what can only be described as the remnants of love.  Broken remnants.

Remnants can become very powerful infusions when they are all you are left with.  I have held them tenderly.  Carefully.  Consciously.  

From something broken... Moses came and stood with words which he could not betray.

For there to be a betrayal, there implies that a small system has been living within rules which must be agreed upon.  As soon as one person no longer agrees upon those rules, another within that system feels betrayed.  

But this is why we need others.  We may feel justified in leaving our pack, it may be the healthiest of all decisions, in fact.  We need others in order to ground ourselves in a moral compass which extends beyond ourselves, not set by rules which have been imposed upon us.  We need this to feel held and seen, in order to come back to our wholeness.

I have been thinking about my karma and how difficult it has been.  How truly difficult.  Wondering about its laws.  Wondering wondering.  Some might say that we cannot change our karma.  That it was set long long ago and that’s that.  Perhaps that is so.  But I am beginning to think that I can change the beliefs which were passed onto me which I have held for far too long about myself.  All those beliefs have done is harm me.  By believing them, I have re-enacted my life the precise way that it was enacted before.  And therefore, hurt myself.

Perhaps the only way that we can heal a life is to not repeat a pattern.

I think the only way to do that is to change what we think.  An ongoing refinement of catching your thoughts and re-patterning them.  Undoing and re-patterning the circuitry.  Again and again and again and again.  Day after day, hour by hour, moment by moment.  For as long as it takes.  

There is a scene in the film “On Golden Pond,” when Jane Fonda (Chelsea) says, “I have been answering to Norman all my life.  Makes me so mad even when I’m 3000 miles away and I don’t even see him.  I’m still answering to him”  And Katharine Hepburn (Ethel) responds, “Don’t you think that everyone looks back on their childhood with a certain amount of bitterness and regret about something?  You’re a big girl now.  Aren’t your tired of it all?  Bore bore bore.  It doesn’t have to ruin your life, darling.  Life marches by, Chels.  I suggest you get on with it.”

I relate to this scene because I have been responding to being abandoned most of my life by re-enacting it.  Drawing relationships towards me which have ended in painful abandonments and painful leave-takings again and again.  I have done this because the wound of being abandoned has not completely healed.  

I thought that it had.  I really did.  But I figured something new about myself recently.  I have wanted acknowledgement around the most painful and wounding leave-taking.  And the reality is, I will never receive what I desire.  I have held out for this acknowledgement as the medicine to my broken parts.  But that medicine is no longer on back order.  It is no longer being distributed.  It no longer exists.  And I must learn to stop looking for that medicine.

Acknowledgement can, indeed, heal our hearts.  Being adults and taking responsibility can be such powerful medicine.  But seeking that very medicine, can be so destructive if tied to moving forward in one’s healing process.  Seeking an external result as the answer to one’s problem is never the answer.

All we can do is be responsible for our own part and send each other back to sort out what our individual work is to do.  It is not my role to tell you that it is your job to apologize to me.  You may never care to do so.  You may never understand the reason for it.  Even if an entire village, who becomes my moral compass, agrees that an apology may be a sane and wise and righteous response, attaching to that desire becomes destructive.  I have lived in that destruction and I must stop answering to it.

Perhaps the only way that we can heal a life is to not repeat a pattern.

That is the medicine I am working with now.  Consciously, valiantly, and compassionately.  No matter how long it takes.

As Anthony Robbins said, “Your biography is not your destiny.  Your decisions are.”

May we all stay awake in our decisions and find our way back to love and healing.  

6.18.13.

Jill Bacharach