Yoga burn out

I remember a few months back reading an article in the Australian Yoga Life magazine about new yoga teachers suffering from burn out, and I thought – that’d be nice, to teach so many class that you get tired! Well, this week, I think I might be starting to char. The promise of endless hours to chew over books and get inspired hasn't happened and instead I'm buzzing and fruzzing between the mat and the Mac to answer emails, write bits and blogs, and of course teach and practice. Okay, it's probably just this week because there are quite a few teachers away so I'm covering a lot (which is great by the way) and things will get back to normal again next week but I wanted to share my experience of this new lifestyle in all its colours, and this part is a kind of roaring, sports-car red.

I’ve created my own real life mini yoga olympics and last Friday was the opening ceremony, with a 6-8am Mysore practice (just the knowledge of the hours ahead sent lead through my legs) followed by a few hours emailing, planning classes, finding music, then at 10.30 – 12pm I taught again, then a bit more class planning, then I did my yoga apprentice program from 3 – 5.30pm, practicing again, then it was time for the Funky Friday Flow class at 6-7pm, then… err, did I miss lunch? It was an incredible day and I was fully immersed, focused, riding it… a prana high perhaps? Yesterday, another event; up at 5, taught two classes, off to the office, full day at office (8.30am – 5.30pm) then back home, sizzled up and omelette then taught 7.30pm class, sofa was yearning and then bed. Zzzzzzzzzz…. Up again this morning at 5.30, taught another class and… etc etc. Now I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful or that I’m not enjoying every single minute. Because I really am. I am absolutely LOVING the teaching. To the point where, when I talk to anyone about it, I feel a goosey rush creep up my cheeks. They say it’s a calling. I’ve never really known what a calling feels like and if it gives you goosey cheeks a big smile (and little wee bags under your eyes), well I think I’ve found it.

But it’s interesting how it’s starting to take its toll on my body. After the full on Friday my back started to tighten and quiver. Uh oh. No more. Then I started to feel a twangy twinge across my left buttock into the injured hamstring and down the leg. My teacher suggested I see a chiro and sure enough everything started to pack up. In silhouette I looked like a lower case ‘r’, barely able to straighten my back and as I did, there it goes, the twingy twang. So my lovely chiro took one look at me and my alphabetty posture and decided it was all connected, as it so often is. A few sacrum clicks and some excruciating deep tissue massage into my psoas and I should be right as rain  in a few days. So, I’ve decided to slow it down a bit. I’m teaching tonight and first thing tomorrow, but in my own practice it’s gone all squidgy bolstery with nourishing, supportive blocks, lots of breath and less stretch. My teacher told me to try practicing at 70%, and breathing at 100%, apparently you feel as light as silky scarf. I’ll give it a go. Here begins another type of yoga.  

Can yoga help me love cockroaches?

One of the downers of living in this Australian paradise are the brown, scuttley pests which set my nerves all jangly and arouse my instinct to kill as they flee into one of the many ready-made kitchen hideaways under the fridge, between the cupboards, behind the rice etc. Oh yes, that loveable Aussie character, Mr Cockroach, who, over these past few weeks I reckon I’ve seen in every possible shape and size manifestation: from the dreaded large dried-pruney ones to the little scatty antsy ones. It’s taken me a while to realise that it’s not just the odd one here and there, but a cockroach breeding factory has set up shop and, most delightful of all, its HQ seems to be in my dishwasher. It’s pretty common not to like them but I’m sh*t scared of them, they give me the heeby jeebies and I don’t really know why. Back in the day I thought nothing of zapping them with cans of magic toxic spray and large WARNINGS to leave the house IMMEDIATELY after spraying. 

But now… it’s not as easy as that. Spraying is not just environmentally unsound, but I’m starting to feel a little bit guilty about killing these things. Maybe yoga can help?!

In fact I just need to look at what the yogis call the ‘kleshas’ or the five causes of suffering which arise from what’s known as avidya or ‘incorrect perception’.

Let’s hear what Desikachar has to say in his excellent book ‘Heart of Yoga.’

“We often determine that we have seen a situation correctly and act according to that perception. In reality however we have denied ourselves and our actions may bring misfortune to ourselves and others. Avidya can be understood as the accumulated result of many unconscious actions, the actions and ways of seeing which we have been mechanically carrying out for years.”

Sounds familiar?

So let’s break it down:

1. Ignorance (avidya): My attitude towards our scuttley friends is based on my samskara (or habitual pattern of behaviour/thinking) which says ‘cockroaches are evil’. This is irrational and is therefore a misconception of the truth. If we remember Kino’s words from my post earlier this week, the goal of yoga is to free ourselves from these patterns of behaviour. 
2. The ego (asmita) causes us to feel separate from others and most commonly results in negative patterns of behaviour such as the need to be better than so and so. Now I’m certainly not trying to be better than that so and so Mr Cockroach but I do feel separate from him, I just don’t understand him. Maybe some compassion is required here, he’s just doing his thing breeding and trying to make ends meet like we all are.
3. Attachment (raga) and rejections (dvesa) I’ve rolled these together because they’re related. Attachments are like the extra cup of coffee/glass of wine you don’t need but that mechanical attachment causes us to really want it. Rejections or ‘dvesas’ are the opposite and here’s where Mr C comes in. When we have a difficult experience or find something unfamiliar we tend to reject it, assuming (incorrectly) that it will always cause pain.
4. Fear (abhinivesa). Mr C is causing me to suffer from an irrational fear. When has a cockroach ever hurt me? In fact there are plenty of substances/activities/relationships which I’ve indulged in time and time again which have caused me far more pain in the past.

So, as you can see yoga has some fancy terms to explain my fear and after this quick diagnosis I’ve definitely got a bad case of the ‘avidyas’ here. I need to bring compassion and understanding towards cockroaches, I need to practice ‘ahimsa’ and not harm another living being. I need to see my fear/ego/rejections for what they are: the result of my flawed faculties of perception. It sounds pretty easy right? 

Yoga’s answer to life’s setbacks

My favourite way of understanding why the heck us yogis jump onto a mat and go through a sequence of postures (which are often the same) every day, is this. Yoga is a safe, rubbery laboratory for examining our life. The postures are our little test tubes, which when faced with different and challenging conditions will have interesting reactions which we observe, learn from, and ultimately apply to our own lives.  The very beautiful Ashtangi Kino MacGregor puts it a bit more professionally:

“Yoga is a body awareness technique aimed at liberating your consciousness from old, habitual was of thinking, being and acting.”

So through watching our reaction to the gross, physical stuff, for instance diliking a particular posture, we start to access the subtle levels of mind and soul asking ourself: why do I hate this posture? What does that say about me? Likewise it figures that doing a yoga practice helps prepare us for the nonsense which life throws at you, life’s conundrums, and the slippery mountains which seem impossible to climb. So, we struggle and battle with a particular posture (for me it was lotus, then supta kurmasana and now bhujapidasana  - okay you don’t need to know what these are but...) the point is, I told myself, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to do these impossible crazy bendy asanas. I know. There’s a girl. Could do with a bit more Anthony Robbins don’t you think? But it just seemed bloody impossible. Then, after a few more weeks/months of practice something opened up and I made progress in these postures, then hey presto, test tube experiment successful. I can get there. So ultimately the impossible became possible.

Life’s full of set backs too and my yoga practice has helped me to understand that we can conquer these too.

Today I woke up to blue skies, marshmallowy clouds and silvery sea. In fact, was a bit windy and damp underfoot but my mood was honey-coated happiness ‘cos I was just having one of those unexplained over the moon, top o’ da morning type days. I felt strong, accomplished, energetic. Driving back towards Manly over the glittery waters of the Spit Bridge, the radio cranked right up, I bounced along to my current favourite sing-along. Pure happiness.

Then... the darkness.  Just a few hours later, I noticed a strangely familiar sensation in my adductor muscle (the inner thigh which pulls our legs together). Familiar. Shit familiar. So back to the yoga laboratory. What’s happened here?

Well, clearly I was bouyed by my marshmallowy mood, so I had a pretty amazing practice first thing; there were only three of us and I was giving it a bit more bubble than I’d usually do first thing in the morning. I felt warrior-like, determined, strong, focused, erm… a little too energetic.  In yoga terms it felt a little like when you’re watching a movie and the actors are all radiant sunshiny loveliness, but the creepy music reveals something very bad is about to play out.

Now, I am not gonna jump the old gun here. Who knows, maybe it’s just a wee niggle that will evaporate with a good night’s sleep.  When I got The Bruise at Purple Valley, it felt different. Today, doesn’t feel as bad and there’s no swelling as yet, but….. It’s setting off those alarm bells. The worry, the fear, definitely something I am prone too – thinking the worst. What if I am out of action again, as I was for three weeks in India? But I got over it in India. What really happened? I learned from it. I rested. The world did not end.

I know that it will heal, I KNOW that yoga is about being able to transcend the physical and learn from it. Listen to Kino for crying out loud and use the experience of the practice. As I learn from my yoga practice, nothing is permanent so everything changes.  As my teacher told me today as well, having injuries helps you to become a better yoga teacher. Just as in life, people who have learned the hardest lessons have often come out the better teacher for it.

Baby steps

I can’t write today without mentioning that it was the Manly Food & Wine festival at the weekend. Of course it's one of my annual highlights, but happily this year sustainability was integrated into the event, so folks were encouraged to cycle there, and biodegradable cutlery was provided along with numerous organic, eco and  sustainability stands (the chickens were another highlight!). But I’m feeling guilty today. Guilty about the amount of wine I drank on Saturday. Guilty because I always talk about making changes and for some reason I can’t seem to bloody well do it.

If I'm honest with myself, I’m really not as green as I could be. For instance, I fly a lot (family in England and a sumo-sized appetite for holidaying); I love my electric heater, which I probably leave on for too long – though never whilst out of the house. And whilst I am careful to recycle as much as possible, I find myself forgetting to bring my reusable shopping bags to Coles (does buying yet another pink reusable one count, or is it better to go the evil plastic one?). And yes, I shop in Coles, rather than local farmers’ markets or organic fruit and veg markets, however I try to buy organic, fair trade and sustainable products where possible, but that’s just it – where possible. I walk places – particular to Coles - though my commitment to walking in the warmer months involves arriving a lot less groomed so I have to shower more frequently (water consumption, hairdryer blasting etc…) Man it’s not easy. I'm a C-, I'm a 'could do better'. But I honestly get confused. There’s a plethora of information on the issue, yet I kind of feel it’s all or nothing, and when faced with the ocean-sized task of offsetting the environmental damage done, I just don’t think I can do it.

Then take the issue of meat eating. I decided when I was in India I’d eat a vegetarian diet. No meat-loving husband around, in a country where 42% of the population are vegetarian, and the choice extensive (lady finger jalfrezi anyone… Mmmm!!) it was the perfect time to go meat free. I loved seeing signs for ‘non-veg’ restaurants, it always took me a moment (I can be quite dim) to work out what that meant, living in meat-lovers paradise, Australia as I do (I was at a huge Australian media event last Christmas where the vegetarian option was salmon). But I loved the veggie diet over there and I honestly didn’t miss meat, one bit, not a chop.  So when I got back to Sydney I decided I’d keep the veggie thing going.

Day two and hubby only had to waft the word churrasco at me, and we were down Brazuca in a flash eating their spicy chorizo and succulent picanha. In yoga terms, meat eating is completely at odds with the idea of ahimsa. Jargon aside, I know it is wrong.  Inhumane. Unhealthy. Environmentally speaking, meat eating is a disaster; in fact the UN recently released a report which urged that on a global level we need to move towards a vegetarian/vegan diet to save the world from hunger and the worst impact of climate change.

"Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."

I stumbled upon a nice little 5 minute TED video today during one of my cyber potters, which raises an interesting point. 

Graham Hill: Why I'm a weekday vegetarian | Video on TED.com

Graham Hill points out the all or nothing issue with vegetarianism. Like me, he’s struggled to give up meat entirely, but outlines the serious impact meat eating has on the environment. He proposes another solution - for the past year, from Monday to Friday he’s a vegetarian. At the weekend he eats, whatever. As you’d expect there are lots of the comments on there are from vegetarians who believe it’s pathetic and he needs to commit to the cause. But it's gotta help right?

Same with plastic water bottles. After seeing the plastic bottle problem in India, I resolved to always carry a reusable bottle (they feel sexy too!).  

There are plastic bottle piles like this everywhere in Goa

I don’t buy bottled water now, I refill. See, for me starting to think about reducing my footprint, it’s got to be baby steps. Happily in Manly a company called Culligan provide filtered water available through the water fountains, which is a fantastic baby step, I reckon.