How to Survive the Worst Year of Your Life

August 2018 to February 2019 will go down in history as the worst six months of my life.

Cliff’s Notes: Dog Died, Mom Got Cancer, Relationship Ended, Dad Died.

It was a lot.

I’ve read and studied so much about grief in the past few years — at the time, I thought it was to help my clients. Because grief is part of any major life change.

Little did I know, I was preparing to survive the worst year ever.

In some ways, I was prepared. And in other ways: it is impossible to prepare.

These are a handful of tools that helped me survive the worst year of my life.

Hopefully, they will help you in your hour of deepest need.

Just like anything, practice makes better. (I don’t believe in perfect anymore.) After each loss, I got better at each of these. I am so grateful I had many of them in place before my dog Bodhi died — because without them, I would likely be in corner somewhere, drinking cheap box wine and eating ice cream straight from the container.

Without further ado:

How to survive the worst year of your life, in advance:

Places to Go, People to See

I have an ever-growing, expanding, twinkling list of all the people I’d love to study with, places I want to experience, and events that I just can’t miss.  Except sometimes I’ll have to miss them.  Maybe you don’t!  In no particular order, check out:

  • Krishna Das, anytime, anywhere.  Right now, I’m looking at visiting with him in Yogaville during Memorial Day weekend.  Want to come? If not then, check out the rest of his tour schedule.
  • Byron Katie, The Work.  Four simple questions that will blow your mind.  Cultivate happiness and peace of mind.  I’m dying to go to The Institute for the Work.
  • BhaktiFest – 4 days, 4,000 people, in Joshua Tree National Park. Yoga, chanting, workshops, community.  My annual schedule is planned around being in California the second weekend in September.  I wrote a little journal about my experience last year, if you want more detail.  For more information, go to www.bhaktifest.com.
  • India.  Need I say more?  Even if the yoga we do now isn’t the “original” yoga, I still want to go to place where it all began. From Benares to the Himalayas, Chidambaram to Mumbai…  When’s our pilgrimage?

What’s on your can’t-miss list?

Into the Bhav: Bhakti Fest Day 1

The sun wakes me for Day 1 of Bhakti Fest. My bed is positioned perfectly for the sunrise glow to gently wake me — which I love.  One step out of bed says the pain in my knee from yesterday is not temporary.  As my teacher Heide says at home: if the pain lasts for an hour after your practice, it’s probably okay.  If it lasts for a day, you did too much.

Thanks, Heide. I did too much.

In some state of denial, I limp down to the Info tent to register for afternoon classes.  “I’ll just take it easy,” I think.  I meet some delightful yogis from the Denver area.  You can tell that it’s not someone’s first Bhakti Fest when they already greet you like family at 6:45am on Day 1.  By 6pm on Day 2, everyone is hugging and kissing hello, greeting apparent strangers with “I love you, brother,” – but on Day 1, the newbies look at you a little crazy when you jump right in.

I register for Saul David Raye’s 3pm class — I know better to return to Dharma Mitra’s class which I pre-registered for “Just in case.”  Just in case what, who knows? Just in case I wasn’t quite finished “getting enlightened” in six hours on Wednesday.

By 7:12 a.m., my day is fully planned.  I buy overpriced coffee just because.  Because sometime iced lattes are the only way to go.

I wander down by the main stage, which still isn’t totally set up, just to see what things look like before the bhav takes over.

It looks like this.

It looks like this.

* * * * *

At 8am, it’s time for the Hanuman Chalisa.  The first time I ever sang the Chalisa was exactly one year ago at Bhakti Fest.  It’s a 40 line prayer to a monkey god, but including the opening and closing it’s more like 50 lines of Hindi that takes about 11 minutes to sing.  I know that sounds nuts, but I’m okay with it.  I think it’s actually a crucial part of why Bhakti Fest last year was the beginning of the end of my old life.  I went home, and began to methodically learn the 50 lines — words in a language I don’t know, just sounds strung together.  It seemed impossible at first, but I was encouraged that so many other people had clearly learned it before.

This morning, I sit down near the front, and sing all 40 lines without a cheat sheet.  My mistakes are covered by the singing of the crowd, led by our dear friend Govin Das of the Bhakti Yoga Shala.  I think this is my favorite singing of his the whole weekend.

* * * * *

9:30 brings class with Mark Whitwell.  Back in carpeted Yoga Hall I, it’s very different and yet very similar to Dharma Mitra the day before.  I practiced with Mr. Whitwell last year — so I knew it would be a gentle enough practice to not cripple me any further.  He spends the first 45 minutes lecturing, cajoling, teasing us a little about the practice in so many western yoga studios.  “This is not the real yoga,” he says.  This rhetoric is so similar to DM, and I can’t help but chuckle.  It becomes a common refrain, almost predictable: “My guru taught me the ‘real yoga,’ and I’m teaching it to you.”  We hear it often over the weekend, although not from every teacher.

This may be my favorite thing about being a yoga teacher and practitioner at this moment in time: nobody agrees about what it is. It’s like trying to define philosophy. The old line teachers say their way is the “right way,” but the very nature of the practice makes it impossible to prove their way definitively right or wrong.

But I enjoy Whitwell’s way.  It’s very linked to breath, and he even integrates bandhas in the practice.  It’s simple, accessible, and transformational.  You can’t help but feel great afterwards.  It occurs to me that I’ve been brought here in preparation for my upcoming work at Odyssey House in New Orleans — offering yoga to newly recovering addicts.  I’m hopeful that simple and accessible will be a helpful tool in their recovery.

* * * * *

I grab snacks and water and head over to Patrick Shaw’s Chaiyurveda workshop.  It’s in the bright, hot, outdoor Workshop Hall II.  The sun is high overhead, beating down on us in this white modern yurt, and poor Patrick is standing in front of burners of boiling water and heating milk.  He’s using Chai to teach about doshas and the karmic action of food.  It’s a sneakily fascinating workshop.  I’m sad to have to leave before it’s over to head to my bodywork appointment.  Doubly sad to miss the chai, even if it is 97 degrees out.

And now my world is totally rocked by Karin Pine.  She’s a Cranio-Sacral therapist and myofascial bodyworker like none I’ve ever met.  She fixes my knee.  She starts working on a 20 year-old hip injury.  All outside, with Gina Sala play in the background on the main stage.  Nearly to the end of my appointment, based on the intensity of the work she’s done, I ask, “I should cancel my afternoon classes, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says.

I leave feeling like I have had a truly spiritual experience.  I make a second appointment immediately.

* * * * *

I wander around in a daze, finding my way home.  I draw a bath.  I haven’t taken a bath in at least 4 years.  I pretend to read.  I hum kirtan.  I finally pull my way out of the tub, make a snack, and wander back out into the desert.  I am the bhav.

Into the Desert: Bhakti Fest I

I’ve just returned from five days of Bhakti Fest – what I lovingly refer to as Yoga Heaven.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert, at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, about 5,000 yogis and bhajans come together to sing, practice, and pray for four days. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to be at Bhakti Fest, but I want to give it a shot to share it with you all.

* * * * *

Windfarm

I arrive on Wednesday mid-morning, after a three hour drive from my brother’s place in Pasadena. Los Angeles has a magical quality, sandwiched between the ocean and the mountains. But Joshua Tree is in the desert beyond the mountains, and the drive there is a metaphor for the journey we’re embarking on. We leave behind the beaches of Santa Monica, and hikes in Hollywood Hills, drive through gaps in the San Bernadino mountains, past giant cities of windmills, beyond Palm Springs’ 100 golf courses and the Native American Casinos to arrive at the Institute for Mentalphysics in Joshua Tree, CA. (Yes, that’s what it’s called).

The Retreat Center is well worn, with a few central buildings – the Sanctuary we use for workshops, the carpeted “exercise” hall that transforms into Yoga Hall I – surrounded by modest housing designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his son. Don’t get too excited – it’s no Falling Water – but the stark design of the apartments and caravansary don’t distract you from the landscape.

The desert of Joshua Tree

The desert of Joshua Tree

And then here in the middle of the desert, is a giant outdoor stage, along with two other yoga halls, and a tiny village built for all of us to come together to sing, practice and pray. We drink chai and vegan protein shakes, eat delectable dosas stuffed with kitcharee. I’m grateful they have a coffee stand, and the chunky monkey (blended bananas and cacao nibs) ain’t half bad.

I settle into my apartment, a bathroom and workable kitchen (except the stove is just for show), which I share with six other women – five of whom are strangers. I describe my sleeping arrangements as “bougie,” to a friend who (like most attendees) is camping in the desert nearby. I know myself well enough to know that I’m not enlightened enough to go without A/C and my own shower for five days in the desert.

* * * * *

My first day is spent in an intensive with Dharma Mitra. He’s one of the old masters; a 70-something Brazilian who you might accidentally mistake for Indian — especially when he effortlessly demonstrates a two-fingered headstand. Like most of the spiritual teachers of the weekend, I am reminded that humor is mandatory to be successful in this business — whether because it attracts students or keeps you sane doesn’t seem to matter.

Mitra tells us at least a dozen times to “extend our compassion beyond our pets,” which is a much milder version of vegan promotion than his previous edict “If you eat animals, you become an animal.” I do my best to meet teachers like this with a blend of compassion and humility, for both of us. We do an old school practice that requires a lot of long holds of deep poses, including lizard as pose #3. There are lots of invitations to bring lotus or half-lotus into our postures, which I politely decline.

Like many old school teachers, he goes around the room giving less-than-gentle adjustments. It almost looks like he’s throwing people into poses, teasing them when they cross the wrong leg in front, openly scolding people who can’t follow his direction. He can get away with this approach, yet it stands in such contrast to the gentle coddling I give my own students who don’t have a highly developed sense of body awareness.

Within half an hour we’re doing a number of headstand variations (again: on carpet under yoga mat), followed by shoulderstands. These are the “king” and “queen” of poses, but I try to remind myself to take it easy and not push too hard — I can do the poses, but I know my ego still makes wagers my body can’t cash in on. I’m a little worried for the students who are less aware or less careful, considering these are also the most injurious poses in the practice. I’m surprised that Mitra pairs us up at the end of practice for a couple of acro poses, and grateful when he gives us an extra long savasana. That is something the old school teachers get right every time.

We’re given a 20-minute break, and return for a dharma talk about the philosophy of yoga. Without telling us that’s what he’s doing, he’s breaking down the first three chapters of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I find it nice to start here. The Sutras may not be everyone’s favorite text, but it seems important to start weaving the tapestry of the weekend with this as the base layer. We’ll hear competing advice over the weekend to the “nirodha” yogis (withdraw your senses, retreat inside, and discover the magical gem of your true nature), but Mitra offers it sincerely and honestly as “the right way.” He goes into the koshas and the kleshas and atma bodhi, and teaches some pranayama. He tells us to skip the first two chapters of the Bhagavad Gita (bless his heart).

He uses computer and cell phone metaphors, which seem ubiquitous nowadays in the yoga crowd. But it’s a nice way to think of it: what makes a cell phone useful is the signal, not the hardware. You’re gonna trade in for the newest technology every two years anyway (if you’re lucky enough not to crack your screen) — so better not to get too attached to your current device. Remember: the signal is what matters. “If you don’t see the bliss in you, you’re blocking it.” It’s both a hopeful and hopeless sentiment.

He tells us he loves to play pool. He gives practical advice about how to put these lessons into action: do your meditation like you take a shower. Do it every day. Don’t beat yourself up when you miss a shower, you just take one the next day. He closes with a perfectly luxurious 30-minute yoga nidra (usually translated as “yogic sleep,” but that he calls “psychic sleep” — I prefer this translation.)

* * * * *

I limp back to my bougie apartment to eat, shower, and prepare for the opening kirtan. My knee hurts, and I know instantly that my chronically tight groins were not okay with the deep groin work, even if I did skip most lotus attempts. I promise myself I’ll make an appointment with a body worker in the morning.

 

More to come…