More thoughts on Joy, inspired by Sandra Dodd

"Try the idea that it might be enjoyable to do work.  To clean, cook, type, compute.  Happiness might last a few seconds, but joy can be ongoing, can be felt before, during, and after our goals. A tiny moment can be enjoyed.  Warm water over your hands when washing. Light and shadow on the floor.  Pictures in the clouds.  You don't need permission from someone else to experience JOY.  Whether or not what you thought gave you joy is up to you.  Your life is yours and is being lived NOW.  Do not wait for approval.  Do not wait for instructions.  Have all this joy you want.  Help your children, family, friends to find this joy too...."

 Blizzards of Abundance!

We spent yesterday camped out in the house.  After our morning practices and some time filming (more on this later!!), we cooked a HUGE pot of bean soup, and played some  math card games & connect the dots (this is a new pastime for us, Ellessia and I found it amusing to see what shapes emerged!).  That's my kind of day!  This was the day of the "crippling storm of the century".  I don't know about you, but the sensationalism of the weather gives me quite a laugh.  We ended up with about a foot of snow. A fair amount, but not exactly crippling.  Now I can't speak for the entire range of the weather, some areas were harder hit.  However,  no matter what the snow fall, there is no need to hold the space for expectations of "crippling" weather.  The storm is of course a metaphor for anything in our lives that creates upheaval and is a disruption to our routine.  Our family has personally weathered several major "life storms".  None of them were easy, and a few required some time to process to move forward.  I have found that my daily practice helps me to weather these times more easily, and I look at them through a different paradigm.  Looking for the abundance in any moment, what can I be grateful for, even though the skies are grey. We can look at any time of seeming stress or intensity and keep our center with a few daily practices:

1- Connect with your physical body EVERY DAY

This is up to your interpretation, but it means some kind of physical activity.  Yoga is great, and is ONE of my own preferences, but you may the person who saves this for a weekly class, that's ok.  Maybe you stretch a little bit, or you go for a daily walk (this is my other daily preference).  Maybe you like to dance, hula hoop, or vacuum the house!  Whatever it is, move your body and make it an intentional action and you will feel more alive.  This will lower Cortisol levels- your stress hormones, and help you to manage stormy times.

2-Find Gratitude

Basic but essential.  Take a few minutes out of your day to recognize the wonderful things you do have.  I have joked in classes that having your spine and breathing mean life is good!  But some days, that may be all there seems to be for you.  That's ok!  What is important is that you recognize the good.  Maybe you wish your significant other did more for you, or that your kids tried harder or helped out more.  Instead of nagging them and making a negative situation all around, what if you did the opposite? This is called "pratipaksha Bhavana" in yoga.  Cultivating the opposite.  You may want to nag and complain, but what if you took a mindful moment to say "thank you" for some small thing they did instead.  What if you appreciate that spine, that breath, or some other personal goodie.  Create a more positive space for yourself and your loved ones.

3- Repeat a Mantram

Daily repetition of an intentional phrase can make miracles.  Mantra is a tool for the mind.  It takes the wild paths the mind likes to go on, and reigns them in.  Repetition is KEY.  Whenever the mind wants to stray, pull it back by coming to your mantram.  Eknath Easwaren says that taking a fast walk while repeating your mantram can be life saving.  I agree.

Some sample Mantrams:

Om Om Om- Connecting to the source
Om Tat Sat- I am that- Source
Sat Nam- Truth is my name
So Hum- Oneness
Om Gam Ganapatayea Namaha- Remove my obstacles

Pick one and make it yours.  Make it your best friend, your daily prescription.  There are NO SIDE EFFECTS of Mantram!  Test it out, and let me know how it makes you feel!


And ultimately, if times get you down, and even if your daily practices of health and wellness don't seem to aid in pulling you through.  See if you can "FAKE IT UNTIL YOU BECOME IT."  Sometimes you have to trick the mind to bring yourself to a place of wholeness.  Put your all into feeling and being well.  One of my departed love teachers, Jyoti Haansa used to tell me "Do something CRAZY".  It works!  It helps to rework negative patterns.  You may have to fake through it, but it just may turn into truth for yourself.  So turn up the music loud and dance like no one is watching.  Do a cartwheel, eat something wild.  Build a snow man- plenty of white stuff out there to do that with!  Make a fort out of your couch cushions.  JUST DO CRAZY (healthy and well, of course).   And become your change.

All Love,

Angie

Just a Quote on Joy...

Sometimes I read Sandra Dodd, and I feel that I am reading deep spiritual writing.  It touches my very soul.  Here is a quote from her.  My share for the day:

"Your life is yours, and it is being lived even as you read this. Do not wait for approval. Do not wait for instructions, or for a proctor to say "Open your lifebook now and write." Have all the joy you want, and help your children, neighbors and relatives find some too. Joy doesn't cost anything but some reuseable thought and awareness"

A little paradigm shift, inspired by Sandra Dodd.... Instead of happiness, seek JOY. Joy is in the present moment, filling your fibers and cells, instead of something we seek. Find the JOY in cooking food. Find the JOY in working with your children. Heck, find the JOY in work. Find the JOY in cleaning your house. Find the JOY in the crisp cold air that greets you when you step outside. Practice experiencing joy, and you will enjoy your new experience of life.

Enjoy.... In love.

Angie 

The Passion of Unschooling

I like to dance with ideas.  I flirt with them.  I think of the thought, consider, read, experiment, and test some more.  Then I like to read reviews and see what others say against my idea.  I feel permeable, able to absorb information that works, leave behind what doesn't, and forge ahead with a new permutation of the idea.

As a Homeschooling mom, when my children were very young, 4 and 6, the concept of Unschooling was not familiar to me.  I hadn't hear of it. I struggled with making my oldest follow a curriculum, couldn't figure out how to "get" her to read, or "make" her learn her facts.  I assumed I was doing it all wrong and threw my hands up in the air.  Let the schools do it, I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

So off they went, to kindergarten, and first grade (even though my oldest was ready age wise for 2nd, I didn't think that was a good place for her).  She started the year off great. Excited at the possibilities. Granted, they missed homeschool club the most, and had fond memories of romping with children of all ages, playing games, taking art classes, eating loads of snacks...  One of my biggest concerns with sending the kids to school was needing to be on a strong schedule and not being able to snack when they wanted!  The teacher assured me there were snacks in the classroom, and no one would starve.  The girls started to make new friends at school and things went well.

About 2 months in, I was called.  My eldest was struggling with the curriculum and wasn't making "academic" gains.  We started having meetings.  Specialists were called in, studies were made.  She saw a reading specialist, a math specialist, and speech and language specialist.  I started to realize it wasn't me!  I wasn't doing something wrong, because the experts couldn't figure this out either.  Even after several major studies and analyzing with Psychologists,  and Special Education teachers, several years later, we never found a specific diagnosis.  Non-specific learning disability.   She was taken out of classes she liked,  like Library,  to go be with Special Education teachers.  She was singled out among her peers.  Different... not able.

I keep saying in meetings, "Can't we focus on her strengths instead of her areas of weakness?"  Wouldn't that be the most logical approach?  If I am not great at carpentry, doesn't it make sense to hire out the carpentry work, and do the job I am good at instead?  Isn't that why we have specialists?  We all have a unique gift we can share with others?  But I was told the school didn't have the resources to work in that way.  She would come home in tears over homework, telling me she knew she wasn't the smartest kid in the class.  As she approached pre-teen years,  I saw her recede more.  Only the beginning stages, but I knew that social pressures would mount, self identification with not being good, smart, would add to big trouble in her teen years.

We considered private schools but really they were too expensive.  Luckily, I work from home and decided to give it another go and to try this homeschooling idea again.  I came across this concept of "Unschooling".  My first thoughts were "crazy, ridiculous", how could that work?  Just let them do what they want??  But as any with seed, it started to grow.  I started to see the wisdom in child driven learning.  And the research mounted again. Suddenly it made so much sense, and mirrored some yogic practices as well.  Learning comes from within, it can not be forced from the outside.  We think its important to study for the standardized test, to pass it well, but what did all that time, effort, and energy really do for us? Well, it made some money for folks at the testing industries.  But what did we gain?  Some facts?  Some ability to work through math problems that we rarely, if ever, face in our day to day existence? If we truly needed those skills, couldn't we figure them out when necessary?  Don't humans excel at figuring out what they need to do, and learning how to do it?  Isn't this whole model causing so many of our adult issues, feelings of inadequacy, not belonging, self identification?  We don't know what we love, or what to do, we don't feel creative.  Because it has been driven out of us.  Worst of all, we all KNOW this is true, because we felt it ourselves when we were children.  Innately, we sense its wrong, but we accept it as a social norm, and going against that takes a strong person.

So why force another curricular system in place of the other?  Why play school at home?  I am choosing to take the bumpy path, and let my kids decide what is important, and then support them 200% in their personal interests. Mom, I want to make a shirt... ok.  Lets do it.  Mom, I want to make a website... ok, lets do it.  Mom, I love minecraft... ok, lets get it for your computer.  Show them you trust them, and you are there to help them, and amazing things start to blossom.  Who cares if they don't score well on that standardized math test.  Doesn't happiness count for something anymore?  Or are we too use to having that beaten out of us too...

I decided to look up what these grown unschoolers actually do with their lives.  Isn't that why we send our kids to school anyway?  To prepare them for an adult life and career?  Turns out, they can get into college just fine without curricular math and LA, Science, etc...

The following is an excerpt from a Blog report on a study of unschoolers as adults.  By Luba Vangelova: 

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/09/how-do-unschoolers-turn-out/


"Overall, 83 percent of the respondents had gone on to pursue some form of higher education. Almost half of those had either completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, or were currently enrolled in such a program; they attended (or had graduated from) a wide range of colleges, from Ivy League universities to state universities and smaller liberal-arts colleges.

Several themes emerged: Getting into college was typically a fairly smooth process for this group; they adjusted to the academics fairly easily, quickly picking up skills such as class note-taking or essay composition; and most felt at a distinct advantage due to their high self-motivation and capacity for self-direction. “The most frequent complaints,” Gray notes on his blog, “were about the lack of motivation and intellectual curiosity among their college classmates, the constricted social life of college, and, in a few cases, constraints imposed by the curriculum or grading system.”

Most of those who went on to college did so without either a high school diploma or general education diploma (GED), and without taking the SAT or ACT. Several credited interviews and portfolios for their acceptance to college, but by far the most common route to a four-year college was to start at a community college (typically begun at age 16, but sometimes even younger).
None of the respondents found college academically difficult, but some found the rules and conventions strange and sometimes off-putting. Young people who were used to having to find things out on their own were taken aback, and even in some cases felt insulted, “when professors assumed they had to tell them what they were supposed to learn,” Gray says."

So if they can get into college, and are self motivate, more so than many of their schooled peers, and they do well, have careers, and happy lives... why make them waste their childhoods studying for tests that have no meaning?  Don't you want your life to have meaning?  Doesn't this become the estranged theme of adulthood?  Is it because we once knew, but we were forced to follow another path because someone else knew what was best for us?  What if they were all wrong???

And whats more... These grown unschoolers tend towards creative entrepreneurial jobs, instead of cubical tell me what to do jobs... no big mystery why...

"The range of jobs and careers was very broad—from film production assistant to tall-ship bosun, urban planner, aerial wildlife photographer, and founder of a construction company—but a few generalizations emerged. Compared to the general population, an unusually high percentage of the survey respondents went on to careers in the creative arts—about half overall, rising to nearly four out of five in the always-unschooled group. Similarly, a high number of respondents (half of the men and about 20 percent of the women) went on to science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) careers. (The same held true in another recent survey of unschoolers.) “STEM careers are also kind of creative careers—they involve looking for something, seeking answers, solving problems,” Gray says. “When you’re looking at it that way, it sort of fits.”

The reason for this correlation is something this survey can’t answer. “Maybe unschooling promotes creativity, or maybe dispositionally creative people or families are more likely to choose unschooling,” Gray says. “It’s probably a little bit of both.”

Additionally, just more than half of the respondents were entrepreneurs (this category overlapped considerably with the creative arts category). But what Gray found most striking is the complete absence (in both this and his Sudbury study samples) of “the typical person who gets an MBA and goes on to become an accountant or middle manager in some business. People with these educational backgrounds don’t go on to bureaucratic jobs. They do work in teams, but where there is a more democratic relationship within the team.”

We fear.   I see it all the time as a yoga teacher.  More so than not being able to do something, we are afraid of the possibilities.  Because we don't trust ourselves.  Why should we, we were told our ideas, interests, were not as important.  We were told to be quiet, and to listen.  Not to voice ourselves, or express ourselves, or pursue our own interests.  I want to change that, in the classes I teach and in my own kids.  I want to support their strengths, not their perceived weaknesses.  I want to see them live in passion, and interest, and to be excited to wake up and face the day and do what they love.

 Don't you want those things too???
 

What is in a name...

Whenever one names something, people start asking, "What does that mean?".  The first name I gave to my style and school of teaching was a loan from my training school:  Shakti Yoga.  Shakti is the expression of the devine feminine that exists in all of us (male or female).  It is the flow, dance, and spark of energy that animates all of life.  I connected immediately with this idea, and could not think of any better way to express it.  So I lived with that name for a while. But people were constantly asking me what it meant, and it seemed confusing.  It is also linked to the Tantra practice, and I received  a few very strange phone calls  from people thinking I offered Tantric practices.  So I thought it would be better to find a different name instead of continuing to borrow my teachers name.

So there were many forms and ideas of the name, and moments of "why do I need a name anyway!".  There is a tiny rebel streak in me.  I don't like to conform, so maybe I could be the yogi formerly known as... or the unnamed... but that didn't last long.  I could just use my own name, and have been in that state for a while.  When designing the Yoga Teacher Training program, I knew there was an idea that would be important for me. There is a line in the Tao Te Ching- in reference to the Tao being expressed by the "Myriad Forms".  This idea always inspired me.  Myriad means: countless, or of an extremely great number.  I have always said that there are as many styles of yoga as there are teachers and practitioners.  That we each bring our own unique expression to the practice.  Each pose, each movement, each breath becomes one of the many beads on the string of the practice of yoga.  So there are Myriad forms of yoga.  But these are really all just expressions of the one.  So it becomes a bit of a paradox.  That there are many countless forms and expressions, but these are expressions of Oneness.  You can think of it this way:  There is one "you".  But "you" may be a mother or father, an aunt or uncle, a son or daughter, a cousin, a husband or wife, a friend, etc... there are many relationships and versions of you.  But the "you" doesn't change.  The unchanging part of the "Myriad" one might call "God" or "spirit" or whatever suits you best.  The Myriad expressions point to the unchanging part.

When we practice yoga, each day it changes. Today we feel open and alive. Tomorrow perhaps we are more tired and slow.  And this changes further, from person to person.  In our teacher training, I emphasize that there is no one correct alignment for a posture.  No one right way to practice and many possibilities to explore. This can seem overwhelming to those who need to "know the answers".  Or it could be completely liberating, depending on your outlook.   In the Kirtan practice, we chant the many names of the divine.  Again, the myriad expressions.  But again, its essence is just one.  Like the Inuit tribes that have many different words for snow, its all still snow.  The words describe different expressions of the same substance. So the word "myriad" expresses a truth.  The truth of oneness behind the many forms.

When you practice with us, myself and the teachers who have trained at Myriad Yoga, you will be honoring your own needs and aligning with your inner truth. There will be no worrying about your pose looking like a textbook, or even trying to get into the pose in the "one right way" because there is no such thing.  We will  always look to the possibilities and help you to explore your own willingness and curiosity to move body, breath, and mind with strength and integrity in the spirit space around and within.

Why hanging the laundry might make you a better person.

I consider our home a creative abode.  Its more than just where I bring my stuff, throw my shoes down, eat some food and sleep.  Its my womb space- my place of creative exploration, my place of spiritual growth through my yoga practices-and daily practices.  My home is my testing ground for new ideas, where I make mistakes and test out my attempts to start anew. 

I also consider my home my sacred land of purity.  That ol Yogic term "Soucha".  What I am confessing  here is that I am a neat freak.  I have some OCD issues, and need my home to be pretty clean 99% of the time.   We also have children, cats and dogs (thank goodness no more fish, bunnies, and guinea pigs).  So sometimes its a battle of wills.  My will to keep my "creative womb space" pure, clean and tidy.  And my families desire to kick back and "loaf" as my eldest likes to say.  Loafing does not create an image of "purity" in my mind.  The scattered books, littered papers, clothes on the floor, and up turned pillows do not = sacred space.   So there begins a struggle.  And I recognize its really my own struggle.  Its my choice to struggle.  To their credit, my whole family (husband included) will pick up their detritus without too much nagging.  Likely because they know where it will go if it doesn't get picked up.

I like to say that you know you are still alive when there are dishes to clean and laundry to tend to.  The constant cycles in a house- they are like breathing.  Always happening, the pulsation of a home.  We do not have a dish washer, and actually NEVER have.  I like it that way.  The whole family helps out with dinner dishes.  Not always with the other meals, but we have to pick our battles here.

Recently, Josh and I decided that we should hang the laundry again.  We go through phases, diligently hanging laundry, and then we cave and just chuck everything in the dryer.  But once we got back from India this past year, where we had to hand wash our laundry in little plastic buckets and hang everything out on the communal line (I refused to hang my underwear out there.  That stayed in the bathroom on a string between two nails, and the Gecko that hung out in the bathroom, I named him Fred...).  So on our return, we decided to keep that tradition going (without Fred).  We have two collapsible clothing racks, one is wooden, and one is metal.  We worked out this great system:  Run a load every day.   That way its never overwhelming (you know what I mean, if you have a family of 4 and you do laundry once a week, yikes!).  Run the washer in the morning and hang it all before 8 AM so it has time to dry.  We discovered that the laundry will dry outside in the sun in a few hours, but will still dry by the next day when left inside in case of rain.   So there is no excuse not to hang it.  Small loads= fast hanging time (about 10-15 minutes) and then it just sits there.  Sometimes it gets left out and it rains, like a second rinse.  But mostly, the system works pretty well.

But... there are mornings where it feels like one more thing to get done in the mad morning rush.  And at times I get help with it, and then days go by at a time with no help.   It lands on me to get the laundry done over and over, day after day....and then resentment starts to seep in... like ants (?).  Why do I have to be the one to do this every day?  What if I go on strike and just stop doing the laundry.  Will someone else ever notice?  Or will they just wear stinky clothes... I may ask the girls to help hang, but they need supervision, as they like to hang all the small socks on the top line, (where the long pants should go) and crumple the clothes on the line so that they take twice as long to dry.  I harbor grumbles at my husband because he should know that I can't always just do all the housework and get the laundry hung up without help day after day.

But for some crazy reason, I still do it.  Its like a pull... some weird magnetic attraction to dirty underwear.  And I realize, that hanging the laundry might make me a better person.  I get a chance to observe my unwillingness to be cooperative, to want to go on strike (and just see what they will do if I stop doing the laundry, it might be fun to see what happens...), and step back and tell myself "Just do it and stop complaining to yourself anyway".  I put aside grumbling emotions, and like the pulsation of breath, engage in unfurling a wet clump of shirt, shaking out the garment, holding it taught to the wooden pole while I pin the shirt- like a silent space inside.  Then next wet clump, over and over, until the days clothes hang on the wooden line like wet leaves on a tree.  Hanging clothes, Breathing,  Meditating-its all the same.   Just another spiritual action in my home-womb space.

How to measure success, by the spoonful.

Is it cheating to post your comments on other blogs as your own blog posts?   Maybe, but I never liked reading and following the rules anyway.

I am intensely intrigued by the idea of Project based learning. Its what I have been hoping the school would be doing when they initiated IEP and special ed services for my daughter. I see that its not how that works. They seem to use the IEP as a map of sorts, to continue with the curriculum they have already set in place, despite the fact that its just not working. So I am jumping ship, and starting my own adventure (this is a theme in my life, and I just love watching it happen!).

I think one needs to decide what we are really trying to do here with this education business, be it homeschool or other. It would seem that perhaps we are preparing children for the "workplace". The world of career and money, and making a "living". Isn't that why we bother with it all? Don't we want to be sure that our children will be "successful?" won't that mean that we succeeded at being parents? That we chose the correct education path for them? Who started spoon feeding us that line of craziness??? Its soo much more than that. Its only one tiny component of life and living, and you know it its true, because it resonates with us on a deeper level. Despite every pore and cell that might scream "yes, but we need to eat and pay our bills!! We should do that in the most economically minded way as possible. I NEED a career that will prove it to the world that I am SUCCESSFUL"- how many of us are so terribly unhappy with life in general? With our "career"? I don't think you will EVER be happy if that is the case. You will always be chasing your tail, trying to figure out if there is a better career, or some fancy shift of career that could better optimize your talents. Maybe I should sign up for this training program, or that, and THEN I too can be successful. Maybe I should make more money, better use my time. On and on and on… Why not do what you love. "Oh, that's such a damn simple woo woo concept" Why? Is that true? When you are doing what you love, are you not content and happy? Search it out. IS it true? Why should a "career" be anything else? Why not Do what inspires you most? Serve the community in some way that moves your soul? What if that is your motivating force? Maybe it won't make you a ton of money, and so you adjust your lifestyle to make that happen. Maybe today what moves your soul, isn't what moves it tomorrow? Move on, Change it. Life is constantly moving and shifting, that is just what it does. Did you ever notice that?

So if I decide that my own kids should do what motivates them most, create in the most unique ways they can, and find ways of sharing that with others, then I would feel like I did my job. That I showed them how maximize their living potential instead of their earning potential.