Yogini’s Quest

Friday night after work, four of us boarded the KTX.  Reaching the speed of 300 km/hr, the ride was fast and smooth and an incredibly ear popping adventure.  We crashed in a love motel and went shopping like crazy in a huge fashion center of the city.  I found myself wanting to use the few Korean words I knew (as usual) and most Koreans only wanted to speak English.  The sights, sounds and feelings were exhilarating.  Ah, a real international city!

Seoul was awesome.  My students have also gotten very frustrated with me because I still can’t pronounce the word correctly.  Anyway, I loved the city.  I realized if I had lived there, the transition into Korea would’ve been easy.  Everyone spoke English and there was a wide range of food choices and restaurants.   However, I also realized that if I had lived there, I probably would’ve gone shopping every weekend and out to eat all the time.  Being in Busan, has challenged me in multiple ways because I am forced to be more self-sufficient than I ever thought I would have to be before.

Also, I’m feeling more and more connected to the small yoga community here in Korea.

Going away for girl’s weekend was fun and a great time for making memories.  I have three girlfriends who live in the same apartment as I.  While we all mesh well for girl’s nights and provide a good support system for each other, I realized this past weekend how different we really are.  I felt the pull this past weekend over the practice and how different I am than most people because of my lifestyle.  These days, I just stay at home and going out almost magnifies how inflexible I really am.  I didn’t want to stay out all night.  I wasn’t open to doing things like I used to be and it made me feel like my attitude was sour and snobby.

The practice does isolate me in a lot of ways.  It also forces me to face that in the past I could’ve befriended anyone and these days I realize I’m becoming more and more selective.  Certainly, it’s been wonderful having girlfriends my age, but as my other girlfriend so honestly admitted, we probably would be friends at home in the states, but we probably wouldn’t be like best friends.

This awkward realization has pulled at my mind in multiple ways.  I’m feeling quite comfortable being alone and doing my things.  I do wonder if it’s also making me selfish.  I’m living for myself, if I don’t want to go out because I’m worried about getting stuck out all night – I just completely avoid a situation.  Am I being anti social?  Surely, it isn’t the practice that is making me this way…

…or is it?

I never felt so anti social at home in the states.  I was just too busy to do anything.  Am I now just too inflexible to step outside myself?

The holidays are creeping closer and closer.  I’m feeling bittersweet about missing the festivities with the family (never thought I’d ever say that).  It will be weird to be here without all the holiday hoopla.

So, I wasn’t able to really spend much time with Tracy when she was in Mysore.  I’m not sure where my mind was off wandering.  Anyway, I recently purchased one of her pendants and it arrived here to me in Korea.

I love, love, love it.

Help support Tracy and Operation Shanti – spread the love!

With all the frustrations and anxiety of the practice (mind and life) – don’t be so serious!!

Okay, I snagged those words from the lyrics from Nickelback.

I’m loving Fall here.  This weekend was so wonderful and I had such a great opportunity to be apart of Korean culture.  I found myself wishing I could connect more (in Korean).  Well, only because I spent all of Saturday with only Koreans and all, but one, could barely speak any English.  It’s in those moments where you realize so many universal signs, the smile, a bow, a hug.  Koreans are very “touchy” and both genders are often seen walking arm and arm or holding hands.  It was the cutest thing, two Korean girls took me to find a bathroom in a large hotel and one of them was holding my hand the hold time (obviously the pic below is not Korean).

I’m having dreams about Mysore quite frequently these days and my heart is wishing I could return again in January.  I’m hearing the words patience regarding India.  Reading all the books I’ve read the past few months about India really makes me miss the culture, even the food.

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that’s all we have – to hold on tight until the dawn”

Shantaram

I haven’t blogged in a while.  The days and weeks are flying and I can’t believe it’s been nearly 6 months.  I decided to do a cleanse/fast last week.  I actually had a girlfriend who sent me an email telling me how amazing her practice was after she fasted for a couple days.  I’d never fasted before and I’m still a newbie to cleansing.  I was taking supplements all week for each meal and still drinking juice.  I needed some sort of sugar…and yes, I was drinking green tea.  First two days were rough and by day 3, wham, I had a huge burst of energy.  My body felt amazing and I felt so connected to myself.

Now, I have to take precautions with any sort of cleanse/fast because of my mentality.  I know how my mind functions and a dark past of eating issues still lurks in the shadows waiting for any sort of acknowledgement.  I’ve always equated that being lighter will make me like myself more.  In addition, since I started practicing, I’ve latched on to the idea that if I weighed less, I’d float.  Every body is different and some are more solid and strong, others are light and floaty, but I rarely recognize that it is possible to be both.

My skin cleared and I really felt like I wanted to listen to mellow music (as opposed to my beat thumping, bass banging techno).  I woke up every morning anxious for practice and felt refreshed (even though I was hungry).  I am so thankful for the practice these days.  Even though there are days when I am unruly and frustrated with myself and any stiff areas I may encounter, it has opened so many portals of the mind for me.  Even if mind were taken aside, I’ve had so many wonderful opportunities arise of late.

I’m helping teach at a nearby health and wellness college with my Korean yoga teacher/friend.  Today, I had an amazing day away from the big city I live in and got to experience a practice of green tea meditation and a truly wonderful Korean lunch.  Even with the huge language barrier, I am feeling so happy and fortunate to be apart of these people’s lives.  They are all so supportive of the practice and, for the first time, I really felt at home and actually wanting to learn Korean.  I’m ready to be established in myself and I’m committing to working towards my inner peace.

…I’m not gonna lie either, I’m really excited for Twilight: New Moon

All thy old woes shall now smile on thee,

And they pains sit bright upon thee.

All they sorrows here shall shine.

And they sufferings be divine;

Tears shall take comfort and turn to gems,

And wrongs repent to diadems.

Even thy deaths shall live and new

Dress the soul that once they slew

~Richard Crashaw, Hymn to Saint Theresa

One of my girlfriends paused to watch me attempt to crank myself into dwi pada.  Then with the help of the teacher, she rammed back legs down and back even more.  The pose doesn’t hurt so much anymore, it’s actually almost starting to feel good.  However, I still can’t balance in it on my own and my right leg still won’t hang back without assistance from my hands pressing my chin up or my arm pulling my leg back.

She gasped, “Oh that’s so scary.  I’d be afraid my legs would get stuck back there and I wouldn’t be able to get out.”

I laughed, “It would actually be a dream if my legs would get stuck back there.”

It dawned on me in the midst of all her fear and bewilderment from watching me that I am no longer afraid of poses.

However, I would like to say that just because they no longer scare, doesn’t mean I don’t find them incredibly difficult.  Sometimes, I get so frustrated with my lack of progress that it seems to almost cause setbacks in my life off the mat.

So, right now, I’m just trying to find the patience and peace to be with what is in my body and life…and this mindset is making my practice a wholly more enjoyable experience.

This was an amazing documentary.  I felt like I really learned a lot more about the Tibetan and Chinese conflict (well, seeing as I barely knew much before).  Of course, there is not much of a fight because the Tibetans have remained peaceful during these tumultuous years.  The Dalai Lama’s heart is incredible and his attitude is inspiring.  I only wish there was a way to help on a grander scale, but my small donation will have to do for now.

My perspective is changing with every passing day now.  I’m really feeling myself sinking into life here.  Though, I still miss the comforts of frozen yogurt with rainbow sprinkles, organic pumpkin muffins from the local organic grocery store, and my family – I no longer miss the yoga community of Encinitas and I am finding myself learning to be more self sufficient every day.  There are things I’m learning to do that I never managed to make the time for in the states, for example reaching out to my family and cooking.  I’m gaining the fearlessness to discover through trial and error if that green thing was actually cilantro or not.  I’m  becoming inventive with food, because miso boiled veggies and white rice was becoming gross.  In the process, I’ve realized that I haven’t fully healed myself from the years of abuse over hating it.

I still do not have a healthy relationship to food.  While, I don’t think Korea will be the place where I will learn to fall in love with food again (because I do not find most particularly falling in love with the food here), I’m hoping to learn to find more balance in my diet through my own cooking.  You know, integrating ghee, coconut oil, and other random spices I’ve feared for so long before.

I took a break from Shantaram (which I absolutely LOVE, TC), to read the unpublished copy of a friend’s book about her yoga journey.  I feel like I can relate to it in so many ways and it’s the first time for me, to read a book of someone who seems to have struggled with the identical issues and lifestyle as I have – yet her story shows a powerful light at the end of the dark and dreary tunnel.  As I’m reading, I’m finding myself confronting multiple truth’s about myself and while I think this is the perfect time to be reading her story, I’ve also realized there’s a lot of me that is still hurting.

However, out of darkness comes light and the complete fabulousness (is that a word?) right now is that I’m loving the yoga community here.  The yoga teacher is so happy that I’m apart of her shala and I feel nothing but gratitude for everything she’s done for me.  I’m so blessed to have a place of refuge outside of work (and my apartment).  In addition, on Thursday, while my actual asana practice was rough, I was filled with a peace.  To my left, were five girls who are now practicing because of my constant badgering.  Okay, it didn’t take much convincing, but I am so happy to be able to share this with my closest girlfriends here.  My other friend told me the other day, the last girl of my close knit clan, “So, I think I’m going to try yoga.  But, I’m really scared because I’m not strong and I don’t have a yoga body.”

I confidently told her that there is no perfect yoga body, even though I still struggle to believe it myself.

One of the girls, who just started last week, squealed to me after doing Surya Namaskara A and B and the finishing sequence, “OMG, I am sooo happy right now, I’m going to attack you later!!”  I love the glow of a new practitioner, one that is really ready for healing.  I already feel as if she’s so far along and so ready to open her heart – a place I was and am so afraid to confront some days.  She told me I inspire her and she’s already having crazy feelings arise, feelings of forgiveness and love.  My heart smiled and I felt crazy because there’s no way possible I could inspire her, because she’s inspiring me and reigniting my fire.

I think my body has basically revolted me for the past month.  Beginning with the lip allergy to something and finishing itself off with some sort of flu.  It’s easy to dispel it all as just some bad luck, timing, or diet choices, but I really think it was my body’s way of telling me to let go.

I haven’t given Korea a proper chance at all.

So, in an effort to step out, I’m going to try and get out more.  I will seek out adventure and follow it wherever it takes me.

My friend and co-worker brought up a good point.  We’re both always talking about what we’ll do and where we’ll go to enjoy our lives after Korea, but why not try and make the grass green where we are?

On that note, I’m so much happier today to be in Korea than I’ve ever been these last five months.  I still can’t believe it’s already been 5 months.

So, it was either the ghee or acupuncture or a combo of both, but I started feeling amazing on Thursday.  My lip is at about 97% right now and I’m feeling great both physically and mentally.  In fact, I haven’t felt this way in months!

I was a believer in ayurveda before, but now I’m a fanatic.

It dawned on late Wednesday that ingesting the ghee in the morning was making me feel quite nauseated.  I still felt a little spaced out during practice on Thursday, but I seriously felt amazing.  Everything felt strong and connected, which was quite a contrast from the practices the few days before.

My mom had packed me with a year’s supply of Burt’s Bee’s before my departure and asked if it was helping at all.  It definitely helped on the surface and soothed my skin topically, but it wasn’t enough.  I realized, the problem needed healing, starting from the inside – out.  It’s like taking Ibuprofen for something that isn’t functioning well inside.  It’s just a band aid, and band aids don’t last forever.

However, I’m still a bit apprehensive about eating Korean food now and plan on avoiding foods saturated in spicy and salty flavors for the time being.

I’m making a concerted effort to connect with my family more.  I guess going to visit this past time, caused me to realize how much they mean to me.  Not saying they didn’t mean anything to me before, but I think I definitely was taking them for granted.  It’s sad that I used to live a mere 6 miles from my parents and 30 min from my sister, yet I would go for weeks at a time without seeing them.  Of course, I remember them annoying me at multiple levels so I found myself not wanting to see them so frequently, but now? I really wish I could see them every day, okay, that might be much…how about every other day?

I guess distance does make the heart grow fonder…