Seattle Yogini

Priorities

Whew!  Ever since I returned from Hawaii, I have felt a bit overwhelmed by the comings and goings of my life.  This is particularly interesting, because I decided to slow my life down substantially upon getting out of the Air Force in 2004.  I wanted a change of pace, and to have the space (in my life AND in my mind) to explore interests and carve out the kind of life I want to live - rather than the kind my culture tells me I should live.

In Hawaii, my schedule was, of course, dictated by the retreat schedule.  This was fine by me because every day was spent doing things I love:  asana, meditation, exploring my life, exploring my surroundings, eating good food, chatting with great people, knitting and reading.  Except for the fact that my husband wasn't there to experience it all with me, I wouldn't change a thing.

My life at home is actually quite similar, except that I have more responsibilities.  Also, at home I focus a great deal of energy on professional growth, whereas in Hawaii it was all about personal growth.  (As an aside:  as a yoga teacher, I believe that my personal growth guides my professional life, but right now that's beside the point)  Since personal growth can be a little harder to measure, I felt that I was meeting my goals just by being there and breathing through the process.  :-)  Here at home, professional growth has many measuring sticks (such as teaching, the studio, writing, Sunrider, my education), and many of them are vying for top priority.

Lately there are many avenues that I'd like to explore, and as a go-getter personality, I struggle with accepting the fact that I don't have to explore them all at once.  There will be time, and now is NOT the time to over-extend myself.  Likewise, I tend to latch on to an idea and want to do it ASAP!  Again, I recognize that this is not only unnecessary, but often detrimental to the overall level of ease in my life.  If I followed through ASAP with every single good idea (at least in my mind!) that I have, I'd never get anything else done - just look at the number of "in progress" knitting projects I have!  What can I say?  I recognize these tendencies and am working on them.  Beating myself up over them will not help.

This weekend I've tried to step back and observe my reactions and behaviors over the last few weeks.  I've felt overwhelmed by the things I think that I *ought*  to do, and yet I haven't really gotten very much done at all.  Huh.  I've felt as if my list of things to do was going to wrap me up like a boa constrictor, but I've barely lifted a finger to get any of it accomplished.  I find this very interesting.  If I were truly stressed about this figurative list, wouldn't I have set about taking care of things by now?

I used to keep an actual list of things to do each day.  This was partly a survival tactice:  for over a year I was the Executive Officer (that's like a personal assistant, for lack of a better civilian term) to my squadron commander (that's like the boss of a large corporation, or hospital or something) both in Korea and at Fairchild AFB.  I wasn't just in charge of my own life, I had to make sure that my boss' professional life (and occasionally personal, as well) went as smoothly as possible.  For me, that required a lot of lists.  The good news was that I have the right personality for such a job and I was very good at it.  The bad news is that I can really only run one person's life at a time, so while theirs was running along as smoothly as I could make it, mine was , ummmmm, bumpy.  The ability to hyper-organize was seen as a great gift, and a professional accomplishment - as if the more I could keep track of the better job I was doing, and the more important I felt.

It probably isn't surprising, then, that up until six months ago I still used my "book" (day-timer thingie) as if I were my own Executive Officer.  After the ectopic this summer everything got turned upside down, and very few things felt important enough to mess with.  But now, I seem to have gone full reverse, and just have post-it notes and scraps of papers with appointments written on them lying about.  I went from overly organized to mimicking the cartoon character Cathy.  I clearly need to find a balance between up-tight assistant mode and lackadasical (sp?) scrap-paper losing mode.  Too much organization is simply no longer a necessity in my life, but a relative lack of it is stressing me out!

One of the best lessons I learned in the military was that when we set parameters we can actually experience a greater sense of freedom.  When you know what your limits are, you are free to do pretty much whatever fits within those limits.  After talking with Rob about this sense of looming tasks, I've decided to re-institute the organization-savvy element of myself, without letting it take over.  I will update my book, empty my e-mail inbox, update my contacts and smooth out the wrinkles of my life.  I will try to get back to appointing certain days of the week with specific responsibilities (for example:  Mondays used to be for housecleaning and laundry, but lately housecleaning gets done in bits and pieces, making us feel like the house is never actually clean) without regimenting my schedule and making it rigid.  I'm hoping that by getting back to that sense of knowing what I expect of myself each day (above and beyond the BIG things I expect of myself), I will be able to respond to my responsibilities in a way that feels free and joyful, rather than harried and guilt-ridden.

Greater freedom is what I seek.  For now, at least, that means setting some priorities, getting organized, and taking care of business.

A Good Day

NOTE:  This was yesterday's night-time post.  When I was ready to post, though, our internet was down.  Here it is...better late than never!

After teaching this morning, my friend Kerrie and I decided to go to Fiber Gallery.  Kerrie had a couple of projects for which she needed yarn, and she'd never been to this LYS (local yarn store).  I have two projects under way, but love Fiber Gallery and knew for a fact that they had the yarn I wanted for Clapotis.  I'm using the yarn called for in the pattern, because I know for a fact that it is soft and I adore the colorway.  I had fun checking out some great books and even saw a family member modeling in the VOGUE Knitting Winter '07 (which I promptly decided to buy, as if somehow my purchase would further her career).  Afterwards we met up with my husband for lunch.  It was a really fun late morning/noontime treat.  I love spending time with Kerrie, and I'm so glad that we have knitting in common.

I'm having a good break from the sweater - working on a pair of socks.  I'm turning the heel of sock #1 and enjoying the self-striping yarn.  I'm just using the Yarn Harlot's pattern from her book, Knitting Rules!  It's very straight-forward and easy to follow if you have some experience with socks.  If you don't have experience, don't worry...she explains it all quite well in the preceding chapter.

I've been playing phone tag with my brother, B.  He recently moved to L.A. to pursue screen acting.  He's been in theater for a long time and was living in NYC for years.  Anyway, he's working with a friend on a project about veterans' stories of the war in Iraq.  He asked to pick my brain about my own experiences in the war, especially as I have a rather unique perspective - having served as an officer at Prince Sultan Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.  Women are still a very small percentage of service members and represent an even smaller percentage in the officer corps.

It's interesting, trying to catch each other so that we can talk about something so BIG (over the phone, no less).  I have no problem sharing my experiences, but there's a part of me that's wondering what to tell.  When I was in the thick of it, even though I had a perpetual air of disbelief, my job was no more or less out of the ordinary than any of my comrades-in-arms.  Looking back through my memories and feelings, I wonder what will be most interesting and helpful.  Does he want to know what my daily life was like at that time?  How it felt to be constantly worried about my safety (and NOT because of any interactions with the enemy)?  What it was like to send aircrews up and just praying that I had given them enough information to keep them from being shot down?  Or maybe the laundry list of vaccinations (including small pox) we had to get?  How sick I became upon returning home?  How long it took me to regain my footing and some semblance of "normalcy"?  How I counted the days until I could go home, even though I knew that my orders had been changed to "indefinite"?  The heartache of being away from my family and the intolerable knowledge that I wouldn't see my husband for at least a year - or "indefinitely" (that ended up changing drastically, but not until the last minute).  The ache in my guts as I tried my damnedest to help the young guys who were under my command stay sane, in spite of the pace we were keeping and the BS we were constantly wading through?  The knowledge that whether I believed in the cause or not, I would forever be linked to the events taking place?

What do people want to know about such experiences, and why?  Considering that most Americans do not serve in the armed forces, why are we so fascinated with the military?  As my grandpa told my younger sister recently:  when you're there, all you can think about is coming home and having the house/family/picket fence/quiet life.  WWII vets didn't talk about it much because people who haven't been have a really hard time understanding, and it's so very hard to explain in adequate detail.  Nowadays we see the wisdom of not bottling things up inside, but that doesn't make it any easier to explain.  Just because we vets are talking, doesn't necessarily mean that people will "get it".  But then, it would be a sad day if everyone got something so heavy.

Then again, perhaps just hearing more stories will teach people what is, and what isn't, worth fighting for.  Maybe it will help people understand the deep responsibility and sacrifice of a military stint - even a short one - so that they can really think twice (or thrice or more) before signing up.  Maybe it will help people understand that not all military members are war-monger, and that the experience of going to war can change even the the most bullish of people.  What I hope most, however, is that by sharing my experiences people will see our deep capacity for change.  They'll see that a woman can look around herself and decide that no matter what, she has to make some serious changes.  They'll see that even though she's already had a second chance at life, she can turn it into a new and improved third version.  And if that woman can do it, maybe someone reading/watching will understand that they can, too.

SAFETY!!!

I spent August of 1999 in Barksdale, LA for AFROTC Field Training.  That's the ROTC version of boot camp.  You see, we did all kinds of training throughout the school year ("Military Science" was the name of the course) and then had the pleasure of spending a horrendously hot month in some ridiculously swampy location.  Louisiana, Florida...places where fire ants thrive and cockroaches can fly - there's a reason I live in Seattle, I tell you!

Anyway, safety was a big concern because cadets are constantly ravenous, sleep-deprived and falling all over themselves to avoid getting called out - not the most "centered" group of young people.  One of the rules was:  when walking in formation and approaching a curb, the first cadet to step up or down the curb must raise a fisted hand and state loudly, "SAFETY".  All other cadets in formation then had to repeat "SAFETY" to indicate that they had heard and understood to look for...something dangerous.

I had forgotten about the safety rule until recently, when I was told about a mis-represented class one of my regular students attended somewhere else.  Now, put on your thinking cap and use your imagination:  when you think of a "Restorative Yoga" class, what comes to mind?  Could it be something like this?  Or perhaps this?  Imagine that you have had a particularly trying week, maybe you're fighting a cold, and you just want to lie with your legs up the wall for awhile, do some supported chest openers and then relax into a nice, long Savasana.  Would you be irked to find that the so-called restorative class was taught just like the "power/flow/abs" class that preceded it?  You might be put out, but hopefully your participation in the class wouldn't lead to injury.  Now look around at your imaginary classmates, some of whom are pregnant, have injuries, limited mobility, or some other physical, mental or emotional issue going on for which they specifically decided to attend a restorative class... would you have the urge to call out "SAFETY" as you watch some of them struggle to keep up with the energetic instructor?

An important component of creating a safe atmosphere for students is ensuring that what is advertised in the class description is, in fact, what they get when they show up to class.  Newcomers to yoga are particularly vulnerable in situations like what I describe above - they truly may not know what to expect, regardless of the class description.  Instructors may  of course choose to vary the theme or focus of a class, but in general students who come to Level 1 class should be able to expect to work at a certain level of difficulty - which will be distinct from Gentle, Restorative or Level 2 classes.

It is completely unacceptable for students to show up to a restorative yoga class and then be led through anything more rigorous.   Certainly, some warming poses or sequences to prepare the body for deep relaxation may be in order, but that does not mean blazing through Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations) and then expecting the awakened nervous system to slide into relaxation.  Slower, less mobile, or more fragile students will not benefit from this and could even be injured.  While it would be inappropriate to hold up a fisted hand and yell "SAFETY!" in the middle of class, if you find yourself in a situation like this I recommend speaking with the teacher after class.  Perhaps they got the schedule confused, or maybe that really is their version of "restorative".  Either way, it will help you to be better informed the next time you want to take that class - or a class with that teacher.