Listening. Learning. Practicing. Opening.
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I have struggled with what exactly to write in my newsletter and on social media this past week. Struggled to find the right words to share - in fear that they won’t be the 'right words'.
But while the words feel stuck, my body has still been speaking. As has my heart. Listening to them, I now know that even if I don't know how to do it 'right' (which I don't), I do need to speak. This is what I’d like to share.
I am heartbroken. And I am horrified, by George Floyd’s murder, along with those of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others before them whose sacred human lives were stolen by racist violence.
As a mother, a yoga and mindfulness teacher and, most importantly, as a human being who believes that all human lives are sacred, I am pausing more, listening more, and learning more about how I can further align my own heart, head, and actions with more clarity, intention, and steadfastness. I am a beginner student here and completely dedicated. (I’ll share some resources I am finding helpful at the bottom of this email.)
I am also bolstering my intention to listen and learn more deeply with Metta Practices.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more Metta (Loving-Kindness) in all my classes, as I believe it’s essential to the work of listening and learning. Metta can help us release the habitual stress and tension that inhibits our ability to truly listen and learn. It can help us to stay open when we have the impulse to shut down. Let me explain.
We know that yoga and meditation help us cultivate higher states of wellbeing in our body and mind. But these practices can literally help rewire us due to the impact they have on our neurology (and physiology).
As human beings, we’re designed to protect ourselves -- armor up -- when we feel threatened or vulnerable. It can happen without our even being aware of it. It may be in the face of something we experienced directly or imagined. Or it may even be from something our parents or grandparents experienced.
Of course, there are times we need to protect ourselves from acute danger, but we are also always wearing some habitual armor. Possibly — probably — ancient armor.
To our nervous system, it doesn’t matter where our armor comes from. What matters is that inside we feel at risk, vulnerable, and in need of protection. Our habitual armor not only inhibits our own wellbeing, it can also have an impact on the wellbeing of others.
So, what also really matters, is that we recognize the armor that protects us is also the barrier that exists between ourselves and all the things we are meant to have a deep connection with. Our armor becomes the barrier we put up against receiving our breath, against experiencing our wholeness. It becomes the barrier against experiencing our connections and relationships with others and the world around us. Against giving and receiving love.
Once we know that the armor originally developed, innocently, to keep us "safe" from whatever we are afraid of, we can see how our armor may also show up as a barrier against the discomfort we feel when it comes to educating ourselves on unconscious racial bias, and unlearning our conditioned beliefs and behavior.
We may inadvertently do more 'armoring' to protect our status quo.
Our work is to learn how to remove our barriers. To strip away our armor. To strip our armor requires courage, but it is essential to our growth and evolution.
We practice Metta because doing so makes our barriers more porous. Because it expands our capacity to feel our compassion and our connectedness. Because once we expand our capacity to recognize our connectedness, we change.
Everything changes. As Sharon Salzberg teaches:
It doesn’t matter how long we may have been
stuck in a sense of our limitations.
If we go into a darkened room and turn on
the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has
been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand
years—we turn on the light and it is illuminated.
Once we control our capacity for love and
happiness, the light has been turned on.
—Sharon Salzberg
Metta trains us to stay open in front of our “triggers.” We practice breathing and relaxing with our discomfort. We practice softening when we have the impulse to shut down, to ignore, to blame. To armor.
Metta offers us an opportunity to practice opening with imagery, in the privacy of our mind, so that we become better at doing it in real life, with others.
We are practicing staying open on purpose, choosing to soften no matter how we feel. So that we can show up more open, more compassionate, more able to listen. To really listen. To listen compassionately.
Compassion begets compassion. When someone is treated with kindness and compassion, they are more apt to act kindly themselves. But also, when we consciously choose compassion toward another, we’re actually flexing our “empathy muscle” and making it stronger.
When we feel compassion, we release hormones that make it easier to see our similarities, as opposed to the stress hormones that can keep us focused on our differences. Our “compassion hormones” make it easier to relax some of the ways we guard ourselves. We perceive fewer boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the world, and this makes us feel that we’re part of something much bigger. Which again, changes the way we respond to our lives and others.
This morning, Monday June 8th at 10am, I'll be guiding a live 15-minute Metta Meditation offered freely. If you can't make it live, you can still register and receive the recording.
In addition, we'll be working with Metta Practices on the mat in all our classes this week (Tuesday and Friday at 10 am). And during our special fundraiser Restore: Receive & Offer Support on Thursday, June 11 with 100% of the proceeds being donated to The Love Land Foundation Therapy Fund (more information below). You can find the June class and special events information on my website.
Plus you'll find offered freely Metta Meditation and Relaxations In the Practice Now section below. These recorded practices will help release tension and set conditions for change and evolution inside and out - that you can use anytime. I hope you'll share them with your family and friends.
Lastly, while I know I will make many mistakes along the way and I will (often) not get it 'right' - I am committed to showing up and doing this work. Pausing, listening, and learning - over and over again. This is not a practice for the mat; it's a practice for life.
RESOURCES I HAVE FOUND HELPFUL:
TV:
My family just watched the Netflix series "When They See Us" as an entry point to begin listening and learning together. Plus there is also a learning companion you can follow online.
PODCASTS:
Unlocking Us Podcast: Brene Brown talks with Ibram X. Kendi.
On Being Podcast: Krista Tippet with Resmaa Menakem
On Being Podcast: Krista Tippet with Eula Bliss
READING:
My Grandmother's Hands: Resmaa Menakem
Who Gets To Be Afraid In America Ibram X. Kendi
A FEW OF THE VERY MANY GREAT RESOURCES & TEACHERS ON IG:
@ColorofChange
@laylafsaad
@rachel.cargle
@zenchangeangel
@nicoleacardoza
RESTORE: RECEIVE & OFFER SUPPORT
FUNDRAISER Thursday. June 11.
A Restorative Yoga Class Benefitting the Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund.
Thursday. 7:30-8:30.
$20 for Live stream & recording access for 7 days.
Join us for a simple but potent series of mindful yoga, restorative poses, and Metta meditation. As we come home to our body, breath, mind, and heart, we increase our capacity for compassion and connection, for change and evolution. As we do this for ourselves, we set conditions to experience deeper connections with others and the world around us.
100% of the class proceeds will be donated to the Loveland Foundation Therapy Fund, which provides financial assistance for mental wellness to Black women and girls nationally seeking therapy.
