tides and seasons of my secret life

I’ve planned on updating for awhile, but… dunno, I’ve been busy freaking out about the current situation at work, feeling insecure and just wishing to make it through another night full of unexpected catastrophes. I even debate with myself about quitting. But hey, I still have friends left after a long period of withdrawal (friends I am deliberately willing to talk to, that is) and I got really good advice the other day. Just set a date (say, January 31st) to decide and make it through, ’cause it could all be the torments of adaptation and getting used to things and people. I’m still a stranger there, the new girl, the unexperienced one. And I’m getting a lot of punches along the way for being a little stubborn and straightforward when it comes to my view of things. So, make it January, 31st and stop being trapped between “right this very second” and “forever”.

Phew.

I’ve missed practice for a month now, but I plan being back on track by next week. My Very Exigent BM will weep in his soul about how much my skills have deteriorated meanwhile, but I have to get back on track, right. So nevermind, swallow the pride and take the shame.

I need to brighten this place up a bit, thus I decided to go along and play that iPod shuffle game that’s circling blogs. So, here’s a representative excerpt of my preferences when it comes to music.

1. Nimm mich mit - 2raumwohnung
2. Another Sad Song - Bandits
3. Ironic - MTV Unplugged - Alanis Morissette
4. Das Spiel -Anette Louisan
5. Thirteen - Elliott Smith
6. I will survive - Gloria Gaynor
7. Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
8. Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Matchbox 20
9. Someone New - Eskobar feat. Heather Nova
10. A Little Time - The Beautiful South
11. Paris Nights - George Baker
12. Beautiful Girl - INXS
13. Funny Honey - Chicago
14. Je T’aime… Moi NonPlus - Serge Gainsbour & Jane Birkin
15. Strong enough - Cher
16. Tell me a poem - Papermoon
17. Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits
18. Parachutes - Coldplay
19. Who by Fire - Leonhard Cohen
20. Gayatri Mantra - Miten & Deva Premal
21. Drops of Jupiter - Train
22. Maniac - Flashdance - Michael Sembello
23. Millionen Legionen - Die Fantastischen Vier
24. You Cut her Hair - Tom McRae
25. Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer

Suffice to show how mainstream-y I’m most of the time I was tempted to smuggle some of my favorite songs in here, which didn’t appear to be chosen, but then I decided, why cheating? And, it’s a pretty high rate of German songs, I never realized this before.
Hope you enjoyed some of that, see ya soon. And I mean, really.

I’m still sharing a key to the same front door with The Darling Man. I guess I got scared. Really scared. By the idea to come home to no one. And I got sentimental. Six years is a looong time. I don’t know what is the right thing to do. Guess I have to live with the questions.

But life? It’s been a bitch lately. Lost a kid the other night. Nothing I could have possibly done to save her. Not my mistake. But still. It’s devastating. My best friend’s boyfriend had a car accident this morning. He has a fracture of the base of his skull and one of his vertebrae. But he’s alive and breathing. This was a close shot.

Thank God training was canceled for today. I need some rest and I’ve been spared the inner fight to practice or not to practice. So I ate pizza and watched Grey’s, and now it’s dark outside again and I feel sad about so many days that go by without me really living. I’ve done all the crying and now it’s just kinda empty.

Who knows. Maybe empty is good.

I’m basically living Grey’s Anatomy. I’m the one who breaks up with The Darling Man and The Other Guy both within two days. I’m the one who’s headache-y and heartache-y and sick all the time. I’m the one who hides out to cry in the off-duty room every chance she gets. I’m the one who’s overworked and overdriven. I’m the one who still has to face it. I’m the one who doesn’t know whether it’s fixable and whether she wants to fix things at all or just let them be and go on. I’m the one who doesn’t know how many times you have to taste one and the same thing and still keep wondering why it tastes the same? Basically, Meredith, Christina, Izzy and O’Malley? They’re all parts of my split personality.

Sometimes we tell the truth, because we have nothing else to give.

And sometimes we tell it, because we owe it.

Hell, where do all those tears come from?

It’s as if they accumulate in some Tear Pit inside my body and only wait for a fairly acceptable occasion to unleash. I could probably raise the water level of the World Ocean by an inch or so. I cry and cry and cry and kinda find that hilarious. So the crying sounds are mingled with laughing sounds and all in one it sounds a bit insane.

Tired.

And now I’m a complete mess. But a mess with a sense of humor, still.

I saw it coming right from the beginning and still decided to go along for the ride, just for the experience. ‘Cause I’m practicing Beginner’s mind. Like, jump off a cliff and see what happens Sounds like a good idea. Uhm, interesting.

But actually, I don’t regret it. Oh, rien de rien, je ne regrette rien. I had my experience. I had some insights, which no one can take away from me. I became very soft and womanly (as opposed to the totally rigid bitch I used to be). I gave in and surrendered a thousand times. I knew I could expect nothing and still, it hit me hard.

When I was a little girl, I had this huge Russian doll. She had a round belly and when you knocked her over, she would jingle and stand up again.

So I’ll shed a tear or two over the possibility, which never really was one and I plan being back to normal within a week. Or so.

Hardest lesson to learn: THINGS CHANGE. Things change within hours and days, so why am I always so eager to hold onto them for a lifetime? I knew things would change, sooner or later, one way or another. This was an equilibrium too tender. But something, which I deny to be me, still attached itself to things as they were for a brief moment. And now I’m the one who’s stuck with the pain. Thank you, ego, go fug yourself.

P.S. I stripped the original post of all its personal details. And you don’t really wanna know Just needed to get that off my chest.

And again, a brilliant quote from DZM:

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. Makes for a kind of compassion, makes for a kind of grief.

I couldn’t possibly stay happy-shiny-enlightened for three whole days, so naturally I had to try out crashing Well, it went well. It’s still doable, although not quite as intense as before. But while taking walks in the clouds, I tend to forget I’m still embodied in this material world, and I can’t simply ignore basic physics such as gravity. Gosh, it pulls you down.

I forget all too willingly that this Living-on-Earth-Business is hard work. It involves insignificant details such as being extremely confused love-wise, not getting paid nearly enough for the [very tiresome, full of responsibility] work I do, not having nearly enough space at home to pull off a proper practice [or actually hear my own thoughts - who needs to listen to them anyway :)] or three night shifts in a week with a day shift thrown in-between. Oh, and loads of laundry.

Spiritual growth is quite an appealing thing, but it doesn’t manage for providing full-time happiness in terms of our earthly existence. So, I have to deal with everyday life, too. Think in terms of whom I want to spend the next 40 years with. Okay, let’s make that 4. Think in terms of Do I still love thee? or is it just a matter of habit. Think in terms of how are we gonna pay the bills.

And so, I had a little crash. “Real” life calling. Thank God I know I have to put things in perspective. And some stuff just doesn’t require immediate action. But yeah, better don’t make that years of hesitation. Don’t stay with the wrong guy for the wrong reasons. [But who knows who's the right guy anyway?]

I’ll leave those questions here and go practice some more. Then, work.

Practice sucked today. In the physical sense of things. I started out stiff, went all wobbly through the Suryas, breath ragged, rhythm irregular. Standing, seated twists, forward bends and some emphasize on backbends. Nothing extraordinary. Couldn’t possibly push myself up in Urdhva Dhanurasana and gave up trying. Real slacker at Zhan Zhuang. Not my day. But it was a practice nevertheless. Best pose of the day: Halasana. Ah, what a delightful stretch.

Already, there is some release in the shoulder/neck area. I have a habit of running around with my neck drawn in between my shoulders like a turtle which made me live with painful lumps of contracted muscle mass for many years. I only fully realized this a week ago. So every now and then I become aware of my posture and try to correct it. Pull the shoulders down, open the chest. A new mantra to feed the mind with

Now, there is a new kind of pain making itself known. Somewhat of a soreness. Being the queen of masochists that I am, I must admit to enjoying it. I love the little cracks and pops in different areas of my spine. Energy settling into place, or something.

I am still reluctant to get going, but when I think of it, my body knows best. I’ll do forward bends and twists in bed to release the stiffness first thing in the morning, so why not get up and pull through the whole thing anyway. Plus, I’m always curious how that particular practice will turn out, whether there will be more or less thinking going on, how deep I can get into each particular pose, what emotions will arise.

Now, I have to shut up. Darling Man’s twin daughters surprisingly showed up and gosh, they require a lot of attention

The little Yoga Snob Quiz at Yogajournal is, like the title says, a bit snobby but it makes for adding a little color to this post.

Not knowing is most intimate.

I stumbled upon this phrase a few times while reading my way through DZM’s archives. I think I get high on her writing. I recognize so much of myself there. The good, and the bad Haha, hello there, concepts. Anyway. As I wrote yesterday about this little new experience of mine, I particularly wanted to stress out that this is just something that happened, not something I have achieved.

So what is this “not knowing”? This is not the same “not knowing” as when Zhaozhou (J: Joshu) asked his teacher Nanquan (J.: Nansen), “What is the way?” Nanquan answered, “Ordinary mind is the way.” Just your mind, the way it is right here and right now. Zhaozhou asked, “Well, shall I seek after it or not?” Nanquan said, “If you seek after it, you’ll miss it.” Zhaozhou said, “If I don’t seek after it, how will I know the way?” Nanquan said, “The way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion, and not knowing is dullness. When you reach the Way beyond all doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. What can that have to do with right or wrong?”

I think I have trapped myself in a dangerous place by reading too much books on spirituality in my early years. But it was just reading, no practice. I was filling my mind with ideas about how things should be. According to whom? According to the particular author/teacher I used to read at that moment. So at the tender age of 23 when I met my own teacher, I had to realize I was already stuffed with too many notions, but no real experience. I was all mind. Quite a prejudiced mind. And quite judgmental, too. He looked at me and said, you’re so full, there is no space inside of you. You cannot be fresh, you cannot perceive the moment. All you do perceive is your concept of things, it blurs your vision. Ouch. But yes. What could I reply? And it still took me a month or two to come to terms with it. That I could fool myself into thinking I knew, but I couldn’t fool him. All he needed was a moment or two and he had me diagnosed

So right there my journey began. The journey of letting go, opening up, the practice. The fighting, the pain, the torment, the giving up on notions. It was my very personal experience of the famous zen story:

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s overfull! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”

It was painful to admit defeat. And for a while, I stopped reading at all. I vowed to myself I would only talk about things I had experienced in person. So a lot of the talking and preaching I used to do suddenly ceased. Then, later, I realized I didn’t want to talk about experiences either, ’cause, you know, they’re rather subjective. They don’t really help others, who are at very different points along their own journey. They can’t use what I have to tell, it’s just me trying to fill their heads with my own newfound perceptions. But who tells they actually represent the truth? The whole purpose of sharing “wisdom” with fellow searchers at this point is about showing off and stroking your own ego. Great. Off it went, another pleasant pastime. Instead, space opened up. Short moments of blissful silence, free of all prejudice and notion.

So, what i wrote about yesterday, it took me years to get there. Years. For one simple understanding. That emotions can just be what they are, without my mind interfering to yell This is good, grab hold of it! This is bad, run away fast. Just feel them, without the judgmental mediator. Different. Definitely different. New, fresh, interesting. What is it that makes pain feel painful and happiness feel happy? When did I learn that loving someone who doesn’t love me back should make me suffer? When did I learn that not being able to control the way the world goes should make me go furious? I don’t even remember. But I’ve lived with this forever. I’ve accepted it to be a real part of me, to be me.

Oh, really, is it?

Something shifted. I’ve been sitting a lot by myself lately. Sometimes I practice, sometimes I sit and stare into space, or watch a movie, but I’m alone in this and it feels so good. Hardly had any social interactions except at the hospital. When I sit long enough and there’s no one around I feel the urge to defend myself from or explain myself to, or even make him like me, I soften up. My body becomes a dim lit, cozy, familiar space for my spirit. So a few days ago I suddenly felt anxious and sad… so far, nothing surprising, but hey, wait, this felt different. This were not waves of anxiety and sadness trying to drown me, capturing my entire inner space, making themselves comfortable inside my brain and body, turning me into some kind of mutant. This was definitely different. So I had to sit for another minute or two, before I could figure it out what was going on there. There was the anxiety and the sadness and then, there was me. They didn’t melt together. I felt them, but I didn’t identify myself with them. There was a space in-between. There was the observer and the observed being two different things. Wow! I think my heart may have jumped a little following that realization. So this is what they all talk about, zen teachers, Castaneda, whonot (is this an actual word? I googled it but couldn’t make up my mind about it. Ah, who cares?)

So this means not to let your emotions rule your inner being, but also not to judge them or make them go away fast, because they can be unpleasant. So THIS… was… it… Who would have guessed I may be blessed to experience it in person, rather than keep imagining in my head that I know what they’re talking about. Wow. It was so exciting that I didn’t mind feeling anxiety and sadness at all. I guess they could have been replaced by joy and happiness and it would have actually felt the same. This little space, it makes all the difference. And I sat there and observed them and let them sink in and be. It was such a peaceful experience. No need to fuss around and do anything in response, react in a certain way, just sit still and let it be what it was. Freedom, people. Sit, breathe, stay with it. Dunno what happened next, my mum must have called me to fetch dinner or something. But I know I’ve been much calmer and quieter since. Much more centered and balanced.

Today, it was pain. Intense emotional pain and longing. But again, I didn’t run away screaming, I didn’t introduce all my friends to my current state of suffering, I didn’t whine and pity myself. I didn’t hold on to it and make it big and important. I just sat with it and let it be. It was there and it was okay. I felt it, but it didn’t really stir me up on the inside. And then it kinda went away by itself. Now I feel calm and relaxed like a clearing in the woods after the rain has stopped raining and the sun peeks through the branches.

Now, how good is this. Efforts (rhythm, persistence and patience) are being rewarded. Life can truly get easier. Who would have believed that.

I guess whether one believes it or not, is completely beside the point. You just do it. You don’t expect anything to happen. You don’t fantasize what should happen. You don’t even hope for something to happen. You just keep going and see what comes around. And eventually, something will come around. It’s rooted in the practice.

Just don’t get too attached

Oh, I did it again. Lost a ton of work, because I didn’t look and pay attention. Isn’t Word supposed to produce some message, like, Hey, you idiot, you didn’t save that file on your harddrive in the first place. Umh, suppose I should have invested more consciousness than impatience and things would be right by now. It was a text I had to edit for my Teacher/Master and I was busy whining how he makes me do everything, like, several times. Work with the same text and stuff. So I complained (although I guess he might have his perfect reasons to do so) and now I have to do it all over again. Isn’t that ironic? Yeah.

I planned on finishing and pulling off a nice practice session on backbends, but now I’m so mad at myself I just want to go and stick my head in the toilet. I may just start all over again, so by the end of the day I’ll have completed at least one of the important things on my task list.

Ugly.

Update: I redid it pretty fast. Thank God for photographic memory. Now I can just as well move on to backbends. Thanks, Gartenfische and DZM for providing me with some necessary … eh, asskicking.