Dancing with the Heart

“When striving for perfection, we think we have to get somewhere. When moving into fullness, we know we have to open our hearts to where we are.”

MARK NEPO

I’m always sharing with my students and reminding myself that perfection is a self loathing habit of our learned minds. We are taught early on to keep striving towards this invisible identity of perfection. And we feed our little self the belief that what we are is not good enough.

The longing continues to haunt us as a way to punish and beat ourselves on a daily basis. Exhaustion follows because we can never reach this impossible ideal.

Maybe for a moment in frozen time, we can pretend to be that perfect person. Ah, the pain of emptiness when we fall from this harsh judgement and realize that nothing is permanent, especially the illusion of perfection. 

To accept ourselves right where we are in all of our imperfections and with all our bruises of living life, the actual feeling of being content with ourselves is the profound moment of forgiveness.

I learned wrong! Life is not this constant need to get outside myself. My joy and happiness is not conditional on the outer but arises when I fall in love with my true self, this imperfect person living a full and joyous life with what I have and where I am—right here NOW. 

This is not an easy practice when my life is filled with obstacles, and I’m tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated with the world I’m seeing with my outer eyes. I need to go inward, to move my mind into the state of yoga and start to experience that I have a choice where to focus my thoughts. I shift from doing to being, focus on the movement of my longer exhales, and feel the physical grip of tension relax into a feeling of release. I let go of that inner need to get life; and instead, I feel my life.

In that moment, I touch the fullness of my life is pure blessing for all of myself, messy, chaotic, confused, and uncertain. I need the constant reminder to be kinder and gentler with myself, to not just sit in my pain, but to make a daily effort to move in another direction.

We all want to be more compassionate, but it must start with ourselves. It’s not very compassionate to beat on myself or resist change either. My daily practice is to quiet that inner task master, so that my reactive mind isn’t just going into its habit of self loathing and seeing life as a thing to conquer and get. In the midst of my confusion, it’s an opportunity to embrace what is being presented and to allow it to move through me.

Yes, sadness is being presented, worry is being presented, and yet with the same awareness, sweetness is being presented, ease is being presented, and love is being presented. To hold the opposites of all of it is the grace of being present to the fullness. It’s being alive to the awe and mystery being presented. It’s living fully in the abundance of all of me. Self acceptance and self forgiveness become my gateway into my true self.

When my mother passed, I found all of my report cards, even those from nursery school! Yes, my sweet record keeper held my life even in her death.

I found one remarkable story about myself that explains so much of my true nature. I must have been three at the time and in the report, the teacher made observations on my behavior. She wrote that I would refuse to play musical chairs since I didn’t want to push anyone off a chair.

I can totally remember this as even today my heart rate goes up just thinking of rushing to get that chair to stay in the game. Instead  when the music went on, I would dance around the room and remain still when the music stopped. I can fully recall the love of just being able to dance and not fight for a chair.

I laughed and cried reading this since it explains everything about my soul. For me, dancing as always been the answer to all my frustrations and stresses. Asana is my dance. But sometimes in moments of deep despair,  I turn the music up and wildly dance around my house. Dancing calms me and allows my mind to release the hold of a belief that there’s a lion behind me ready to eat me.

Yes, the sympathic nervous keeps the adrenal rushing even though intellectually, I know there is NO LION. My body is wired to fight and survive for my existence. I am taught that somehow I must fight or run to get away from the terrible fate of being eaten.

Daily, with this false belief, I am feeding the memory of learned habit and existing on false energy. And as children, we learned that if we don’t get that chair, we lose the game. Is purpose of the game of life to win at all costs?  Who said that I had to beat someone to their chair to validate my existence? Childhood games are competitive becoming the game of business, politics, and the game of striving.   

All of us learned that life is out there to get and be seen. When we identify with our outer shell (or as I call the body—the “container”) and when we attach our worth to the job, the role, or our stuff, we call this AVIDYA, the root of all our suffering.   

I must have decided early on to give my chair to another and dance to my own drummer. Life is always presenting opportunity to live fully, to share our abundance, and to thrive in our joyous truth. We just have to practice shifting that habit of believing the lie, that perfection would be obtained by getting that chair.

When one actually feels being ENOUGH, one has more to give. In the teachings of yoga, it is not enough to survive, we must honor the thriving of life.

Yes, living is filled with potholes and challenges, and I’m aware of the obstacles. But by practicing inner kindness and letting go of our inner judgement, we can offer a chair to others and still feel safe and steady in this very fast and furious world. 

I invite all of us to dance more, laugh more and be enough as imperfect people living perfect lives!

Many blessings,

Laura Jane

"Zooming" in the Blessed Space of Your Own Home

Laura Jane Mellencamp

I am so humbled by the constant reminder that I am not in control of anything. I can only set an intention, do my best, and leave the rest. I could never imagine when we closed our doors in March that we would still be in such a state of confusion come July.

After sitting in the uncertainty, I am holding the future loosely. I feel at this time, it would be too hasty to open our doors and bring students into our space with so many conflicting messages around this variable virus. I have to respect my teachers and the students. To return too soon would not be a healthy decision considering all the unknowns.

I feel that all the safety concerns being presented are only going to agitate the minds; wearing a mask, keeping social distancing, and having to practice without the air conditioner is not offering our community a joyous place to practice. I must honor the first principle of yoga, Ahimsa (non-harming), is my first intention.

Therefore, I am postponing the reopening of the studio until we have better protocols for teaching without causing emotional stress. We are remaining to be steadfast in our commitment to share and teachings via zoom and to enhance the community with nurturing love as we ride the wave of this airborne virus.

Who would imagine six months ago that my life work of touch, offering hugs as a healing modality, would be eliminated. Breath is all there is for life. As teachers of yoga, our commitment has been to teach the value of exhaling. Now we learn this is how the virus thrives.  

My heart is sadden but my spirit remains more confident than ever. We will return to the studio slowly and yet for today, YAF will remain a home base for all of us to stay healthy and vibrant and positive moving forward in the comfort of our homes. Community is the most important healing foundation and so please continue to practice and bring your soul to the mat.

We are collectively breathing for the world, and your intention to spread the kindness of respect, patience, forgiveness, and love is our mission statement now. Let go of harming judgements, fearful projections and angry resistance.

Life is moving us forward. Transformational creativity is happening but we must be still enough to listen. “Zooming” in the blessed space of your own home and trust that our teachers are holding all of you in a safe and caring way.

We maintain our practice to experience our collective consciousness of beauty, wonder and grace. Let us remember our true nature and extend this intrinsic harmony into the world.

We can breathe together and as one vibrational sound—be the love! This might sound “Kumbayah”, and too simple for the complex nature of our times, but the strength of intention is not from a lack mind but from a full and grateful heart.  

In light and love,

Laura Jane

Living through difficult times

   “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Love cannot remain by itself - It has no meaning. Love has to put into action, and that action is service.”

—Mother Theresa

As we come into the presence of this lunar full moon eclipse, we are being asked to look within more than ever as we move forward. The questions that arise now are daunting and frustrating. Haven’t I been here before?

I was living and experiencing the ‘92 LA riots after the acquittal of the LAPD officers for the violent beating Rodney King—the raging fires, the looting and the killings. I was teaching yoga, putting my self through graduate school, going through a divorce, and house sitting as I tried to manage life as best I could in the hectic circumstances being presented.

I was fortunate enough to be able to escape my apartment as I lived three blocks from the epicenter of the start of the uprising. The massive smoke from the fires being set surrounded my apartment and I couldn’t breathe. On those frightening days of unrest, the presence of the National Guard was right down the street.

Those memories came flooding back this past week. Back then there were no peaceful marches nor understanding of the deeper pain; the country remained separated and just confused.  I retreated and escaped to the affluent Hollywood Hills, blessed to have friends in “high Places”  because I could.

I am a white woman educated, and yes, born into my identity. Like most of us living in a white world, I was able to look down into the streets below with the ache of deep sadness. Everywhere, I saw how devastating the looters were as they rampaged through Hollywood taking everything they could carry and more.

I was equally as horrified by the hoarding I witnessed in the supermarkets. Cart after cart of indulgence linked from a fearful mind to take whatever was on the shelves. As the customers screamed how terrible “those looters”  from their protective mountain mansions, the credit card was racking up whatever debt needed to be used.

There was blame and thoughts of putting up more barriers as "those people might come to take your possessions too." How sad that fear brings such anger and judgement and denial. I watched "looting" on both sides. Maybe we assume it is better to create debt than to actually “steal”.  

I was shocked then and soon realized that some of us can’t afford to get into debt! I observed and reflected on how the pain of “lack” escalates into anger. Revenge is fed when we feel cut off from any source of nourishment and the pain of being pushed so far down.

The cruel superiority of judgement is a weight we all carry. I am constantly aware of my thoughts as I struggle with putting myself in someones else’s shoes, practicing to let go any judgement for what I don’t understand. I am not condoning the actions of looting in anyway, I just want to hold the opportunity to see from all perspectives.

I have been deeply absorbed in the yoga study of the yamas:

• Ahimsa—the consideration towards all living beings and to act without harm.

• Staya—to use words, gesture and actions with truthful intentions.

• Steya—to not covet and resist the desire for that which does not belong to us.

• Brahmacarya— moderation in all our action.

• Aparigraha—to resist the urge to hoard with an ability to accept only what is needed.

How these brilliant teachings are to ask of me to practice letting go of my fears and be open to holding an attitude of compassion!

I recall months after the riots, I could walk freely in Beverly Hills and travel without the burden of being seen as “not belonging”.  I remember my sweet friend from Ghana was questioned about her presence in the neighborhood. I left her outside the house I was staying in to go use the bathroom. I was gone only minutes; and yet returning outside, I saw she was surrounded by two police officers questionng her presence there. I felt for the first time how painful it must be to walk around as “other” and be so judged by just being there. Does the world ever see past the outer shell into the eyes of a human soul longing to belong?

I am still shocked, and still grieving, that we are now witnessing these historic cries to pay attention. We are all looters to mother earth, and to the system of greed, and to the need to get more. We teach it is not enough to just be a loving kind soul. If you are poor, if your skin is dark, and if you are homeless, well then, you are in the wrong. That pain is a cry for please, "pay attention to my soul.”  

We are being presented with deeper questions, and and we must focus on finding solutions. Since moving to the western suburbs, it has been a daily challenge to engage is these powerful conversations without having a diversity in my yoga population. I hope we can move into this time with tools for keeping our consciousness alive to how we can serve—and not add to the problem by avoiding those courageous conversations that take listening, and willingness to go into our murky places. We must be the voice of the heart and refuse to collude in the fear. We will move collectively into a future with better tools, that which is NOT possible becomes POSSIBLE with yoga!!

I am hopeful that as we move forward we can drop the armor of defense and move into acts of kindness. I must speak out forgiving myself for contributing to the problem; and with support of our community, move into solutions for a better future for all.

I’m so grateful that our new platform of classes has begun. Our community is needed more now than ever. We need a steady balanced mind and the willingness to engage in tapas of effort; keeping the flame alive and vibrant so we can cultivate the expansion of the loving heart.

Please take a deep breath and send out the exhale from your true self. May we all be grateful for this day.  

With love,

Laura Jane