Practicing Yoga and Social Justice

As one of my contributions to our collective effort to survive this time, I am periodically offering a free 10 minute guided meditation on my blog. 10 minutes because everyone can find 10 minutes in their day to do something that sustains you and increases your positive impact on the people around you. And because research shows that even 10 minutes of meditation can improve your brain functioning - and make you feel better. There are dozens of meditation apps and sources out there. I don't claim mine is anything better than what you find could elsewhere. But two things might make your experience of these guided meditations unique. First, if you have attended any of the leadership retreats where I offer a mindfulness practice, you may find that listening to these guided meditations connects you to the retreat experience and allows you to renew the feelings of connectedness and power you had there. Second, many of my guided meditations will have a social justice element that connec...

I’ve been doing more sitting meditation this summer and it has given me a whole new set of ways of making sense of and coping with the moment. One of the major insights I have had is the importance of disconnecting from the Trump circus. We have to figure that out. We have to learn now to hold two things in focus at once – Trump and everything he is doing and how we are called to skillfully intervene; and other realities. Other forms of being. Other things that are happening around us. This feels extremely important to me right now for two reasons. First, for our own survival. For being able to experience beauty and community and pleasure in ways that can recharge us for the fight. But perhaps more importantly, we need to do this because we aren’t going to find the answers to Trump by watching Trump and being absorbed in the chaos he sows everywhere. We are going to find the answers when we create space for creativity, for new visions, for locating a grounded centerpo...

I started off the year thinking and writing about fear, and for the last month I’ve been thinking a lot about courage. It feels like progress. A month ago I talked to a friend and colleague about my concerns that the very idea of resistance was being coopted and normalized. I worried that it was hip and cool to go to rallies. That we'd gotten excited about resisting without really having an impact. I feel almost embarassed for saying those things, because I realize how much I was failing to see what was really happening. But I had to say it out loud to hear myself, and then to start noticing that something really beautiful is happening.  It is like the resistance is flourishing – the mundane acts that start with demanding the full force of our democracy are giving rise to extraordinary acts of courage and self sacrifice. Two weeks ago, disability rights activists staged sit-ins in Mitch McConnell’s DC office and in Senator Cory Gardner’s Denver of...

People often come to yoga to relieve pain, but they can be very surprised when yoga is itself painful. A real yoga practice looks nothing like depicted in ads – it isn’t always filled with moments of serene quiet and calm, soft light flowing in, peaceful facial expressions. The real yoga is challenging. It can make you feel like you have to go outside yourself to find strength or cope with a new kind of opening. Effort can manifest in determined and tense facial expressions. It can make you grunt or even cry out sometimes. And why shouldn’t it be painful? I mean, there are certain kinds of pain that are absolutely to be avoided: knee pain, low back pain, certain kinds of shoulder pain, headaches. But lots of kinds of pain are required for change and transformation. In the classes I teach, when people complain that something hurts, I make sure it isn’t an injurious situation. But I’ve heard the Iyengars say, basically:   Well what do you expect? That it sho...

Well, it’s Monday and we still live here, in Trumplandia. It is still a mind-boggling existence that makes no sense. There are still the daily violations of the basic norms of democracy, alongside the fundamental violations of human rights – women and men of color beaten up (and killed) in the streets, white men killed for defending them. After the Portland tragedy, I wondered about self-defense. What strategy to pursue – learn to shoot a gun? I know I can’t do that, and anyway it seems like it all happened so fast, before anyone would even be able to choose that defensive option. Martial arts? Maybe with a weapon? Would that be practical and effective against a knife-wielding mad man? Pepper spray? I point out that I’m very concerned about having a self-defense strategy against a white supremacist, so-called Christian, attacking women of color. Yet I have never thought even once about having a self-defense strategy against a so-called Muslim extremist. For now, I ...

I haven’t been writing for the past six weeks because I haven’t been sleeping. When you don’t sleep, the days pass in a blur of exhaustion, wishing to sleep, being too tired to do all the good-life things that help you sleep, then finally sleep comes and it is sweet and delicious. But catching up after no sleep takes a few days and then before I know it, I’m back to not sleeping. I have spent years coping with this cycle. The current version is about as bad as it has been in awhile, but I am still trying to learn what I’m supposed to learn, still trying new adaptations that might help. And mostly, trying not to sink into self-critique and trying not to lose the capacity for joy. Meanwhile, I’ve been reflecting on the symbolic significance of the humble offering. The commentary of the Bhagavad Gita I’m reading is rife with stories that juxtapose the erudite, learned, religious person -- whose rituals are impeccable, whose understanding of them is flawless – with the simple,...

About a month ago, I was feeling so hopeful after the House Republicans couldn’t even manage to hold a vote on the repeal of Obamacare. I thought it was basically dead. House leadership (not to mention our president) hadn’t anticipated they would have to navigate a very complicated and conflicting set of concerns about Obamacare and hadn’t developed the right set of changes that could navigate those concerns. Meanwhile, strong and powerful organizing in House districts had brought Representatives face to face with angry and scared constituents who told deeply moving stories about how losing health care would affect them. It felt like we had won – we had effectively demonstrated the cost of eliminating the current system, flawed though it may be, without creating a viable alternative. And yet here we are. The House voted to repeal Obamacare on Thursday. It is widely projected that 24 million people would effectively lose health care under this plan because ...

I’m working my way through the anti-Trump reading list. Back in January I started reading Things That Can And Cannot Be Said , which is primarily a dialogue between Arundhati Roy – the famous Indian novelist and activist – and John Cusack. Yes, that John Cusack. The Actor. Of Say Anything fame. Apparently he’s a big freedom of the press activist and he became friends with Arundhati Roy through a board they serve on. There are so many improbable things about this book, starting with the relationship between its authors. But it gets even crazier – the book is essentially a dialogue they shared around the time they decided, together, to take Daniel Ellsberg (yes that Daniel Ellsberg. Of Pentagon Papers fame.) to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden. This fact alone – the setup, the circumstances, the beautiful prose of two artists framing a discussion of tragedy and betrayal – make it worth the short read. The deeper messages though are disturbing and prescient. The core of...

There’s something about life teaching you the same lesson over and over again until you finally internalize it. That’s actually a core teaching of yoga – we are not just learning the same lesson over and over in this life, we actually keep at it lifetime after lifetime until all the lessons are internalized, and then we ascend to a higher plane. But it’s funny to see the written record and realize that I’m cycling through the same lesson every couple of months. I’m learning something about trying to find happiness inside, trying not to let the overarching political situation determine my state of mind. As I started to write this blog, I had an eerie feeling of déjà vu and then I saw that I wrote something about joy as an act of resistance back in January. So here we are again. I haven’t been writing as much this last month or so. I have felt a little busy and a little blocked. It’s only been a couple of months in this brave new world, but like many people ...

I’ve been caught up in all kinds of human connectedness for the past month and lacking the time for solitude, the space for introspection. This is the busiest time for my job, and alongside the normal hectic pace we are also dealing with major internal changes – layoffs, reorganizing, new leaders in key roles. It’s all stuff that would probably be happening with or without the DJT era, but the general sense of constant unrelenting attack makes it that more challenging. And yet. While I miss the solitude and introspection, I’ve been really deeply moved by the connections. And reflecting now on how they underlie any struggle for justice, and how do they fit into the yogic life. A couple of weeks ago I co-facilitated a day-long session to help a group of union leaders talk about how race and racism affect their organization and their work. It was powerful. We had a group of about 50, mostly white men, mostly older than me. A colleague and I put together an agenda and we b...