35 Ways to Deal With Life
Posted: March 13, 2011 Filed under: #365yoga, Animal Friends, Film, Fine Art, Life, Poetry, Travel, Uncategorized, Vegetarian, Working Life, Yoga, Yoga Culture, YogaTunes | Tags: balance, life, purpose, Stress, work, yoga 6 CommentsNumbers 1-16
I’m depressed. I was officially diagnosed about fifteen years ago. I’ve refused “meds” because I don’t want to depend on an unnatural chemical intervention to make me OK. Life is what it is. For me, it’s usually petty, stressful and full of obligations. I’ve come to realize that dealing successfully with life has become a simple mathematical equation. Let’s say life is 80% bad and I get to spend 20% of my time recovering from the bad. I need to value that twenty percent, which means that I can’t only spend it lounging under blankets and stuffing cereal into my mouth straight from the box. Not much of a life when the other eighty percent involves me working long hours at a stressful job.
That twenty percent of “good life” needs to be full of things I really love, things that make life worth living. The more good stuff you add to a bad life, the more balanced life will appear. You can trick yourself into dealing. Depending on your situation, you might not need “meds”. You just have to identify what you love and do it like crazy. Like your life depends on it.
I’m sharing the below list because it might help you. It’s packed with over thirty things that I’ve found make life worth living. (I’ll post numbers 17-35 later this week.) Maybe you’ll learn a new self-soothing technique. Maybe you’ll be reminded to love something you forgot about. Maybe you’ll reconsider loving something.
1. Eat a Big Bowl of Pasta
It’s not the most nutritious thing in the world, but good pasta and good jar sauce is one of the most comforting fast suppers in the world. DeCecco pasta is the best, but Barilla isn’t bad either. Trader Joe’s Arrabbiata or Four Cheese sauces rock. Paul Newman makes an okay jar sauce too. Boil up your pasta and while it’s draining, dump the sauce into the same pot on the still-hot burner. When it gets hot, toss in the hot pasta and you’ve got a nommy one-pot dinner in about 15 minutes. Comfort after a twelve-hour workday.
2. Silence
Some of my happiest moments happened while on silent retreat. Going under the cloak of silence for seven days is a little anxiety-producing at first, but once you release the tight fist of grasping, it becomes divine. You don’t have to go on retreat but you can’t practice silence at a workaday job either. Try silence for a weekend. No computers or television, no cell phones, no talking. If you can stand it, try to cut out music and reading too. Don’t drown yourself out with media and others. Give yourself time to be with yourself. If it’s uncomfortable, don’t give up. Slowly train yourself to sit with what’s uncomfortable. Practice self-inquiry.
3. Sit in Front of a Fireplace
I have achieved one of my lifelong dreams in getting a home with a fireplace and in the cold weather, I use it all the time. I love letting the heat from the fire warm my hamstrings and back before a yoga practice. I loved noticing its happy flickers during the hub-bub of Christmas day. I love turning out the lights and sitting in front of it, just staring. Watching its activity, its energy. Humans have done this for eons for good reason. Let the fire do its thing.
4. Take a Bath
Baths are the best. Especially with Epsom salt and lavender oil. They’re good for your skin. They soothe sore muscles and ease you to sleep. Join me in taking the waters weekly.
5. A Night at the Opera
Over the last couple of years, I’ve realized what a treat it is to go to the opera. I’m lucky to live within driving distance of the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. After a couple of shows, I was hooked. I can actually feel the endorphins flooding my body during an aria sung by a doomed heroine. The opera has it all – rare talents of people at the top of their field mixed with often-surreal, otherworldly scenery, set to the finest music and the poetry of clever librettos. It’s a supreme art form; one of the most beautiful ever created. And it needs your support.
6. Collect Things
I collect Edward Gorey’s books – the originals, many with their jackets. I’d like to start collecting rare books. At the top of my wishlist is a first (or second) printing of L’Histoire de Babar. I also collect tea, butterflies, cardigans, ephemera, and mean bosses.
7. Have a Crutch
Some people get off on power, perfectionism, wine or weed. You got a crutch? Use it. I’m not advocating anything dangerous or unhealthy. We’re just talking about getting through life here. If a glass of red wine gets you to sleep after a stressful day at work, I’m right there with you.
8. Meditate
Meditation is a challenge worth exploring. I admit that I don’t keep a consistent practice, but I can vouch for its effectiveness when I’m on retreat or as part of my yoga practice. I’ve sat blissfully for as long as thirty minutes, and I’ve given up after twenty seconds of fidgeting. The key is training yourself to watch yourself. If you have a thought, acknowledge it, then send it on its way like a leaf in a stream. And breathe.
9. Crochet or Knit
I’m no good at it, but it’s a relaxing, productive way to expend anxious feelings.
10. Make Art
I don’t make nearly as much work as much as I think about making it. Making art’s not for everybody because there can be fear when you’re staring down the blank canvas. Or just scribble. Put your new perspectives to use in a journal. If the US experiences a nation-wide, natural (or unnatural) disaster, we’ll be the first ones to start drawing in the dirt.
11. Cook Your Own Food
Food from out is rarely as good as the food from my own kitchen. If you don’t already know how, learn to cook well for yourself. Cheaper, healthier and usually more delicious because it’s exactly what you want; it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
12. Eat a Cupcake
‘Nuff said. The best ones come from friends.
13. Practice Yoga
I don’t schedule late meetings on Tuesdays. That’s my yoga night and I try hard to maintain that work-life boundary. Yoga makes life worth living. Try it. You’ll be surprised at how strong you are. If you already have a practice, explore trip-hop for your playlist. Bands like Portishead and Massive Attack were practically made for yoga. Also, try the mixes from the Costes brothers’ hotels. (Etage 3 is my favorite.)
14. Buy New Underwear
A reasonable purchase to ease the pain of life.
15. Read David Sedaris
He’s right about everything. I guarantee you will actually laugh out loud.
16. Get to Know Those Less Fortunate
Spending my career at nonprofit organizations has taught me a lot. The most important obstacle for all of them is that not enough people want to learn about the suffering of others. It’s like why people refuse to give up eating meat – they don’t want to know the truth because if they did, they’d have to do something about it. What do you care about? Go and stand with the people who are working to do something about it. The first step is to educate yourself. Then volunteer. Then donate – it doesn’t have to be money. Grassroots nonprofits need your professional skills, if you’re willing to donate them. Are you an accountant, or an HR executive? Are you an IT professional? Nonprofits need your help. Offer it.
Please keep in mind that these are merely offerings – just things that help me deal with living in an imperfect world. I’ll post numbers 17-35 later this week. If you try any of these suggestions, please let me know how it goes.
Elegance of Simplicity
Posted: March 7, 2011 Filed under: Animal Friends, Life, Poetry, Vegetarian, Yoga Culture 1 Comment
“Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself;
if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.”
~Simone de Beauvoir
After years working for grassroots nonprofit organizations, I’ve gotten a good education about the haves and the have-nots. I ran a soup kitchen and knew the needs of the women and children I served. I also knew the lack of need of our donors; wealthy women from the suburbs. Conspicuous consumption was a game to these women, one of whom can be frequently seen on Real Housewives of New Jersey. Land yachts, private schools, nannies, fancy kitchens which are never cooked in, designer shoes and handbags that are worn once. It was a challenge kowtowing to that, minutes after helping homeless old ladies pick out used winter coats. After a while, I got to thinking: how do I fit in here?
“Voluntary Simplicity” by Duane Elgin helped sort it out. First printed in 1981, it’s just been re-released and updated to address our more modern constraints. It’s not about politics and it’s not about self-sacrifice, nor is it about living in poverty. It’s about finding balance. Elgin examines conspicuous consumption, the hyperactivity of the internet age and their effect on our humanity. Through interviews and research, he presents an attainable means to embrace a more satisfying life through frugal consumption and ecological awareness. Elgin presents everyday adjustments one can make to inch towards “a way of life that is outwardly simple, inwardly rich”.
Get High with Bjork
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: #365yoga, Fine Art, Life, Yoga, Yoga Culture, YogaTunes | Tags: bjork, music, yoga Leave a comment
Granted, Bjork is not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve always loved her, but lately her music has become THE soundtrack to my yoga highs. The lush video above (directed by the late, ultra-fab Alexander McQueen) for the song Alarm Call is a perfect example.
As I pursue my daily yoga practice, occasionally I’ll be rewarded with a yoga high. As I’m rolling up my mat after Savasana, it’ll come over me. After an hour and a half of deep, focused breathing and powerful muscular activity, my heart is beating steadily, calmly nourishing the rest of my body. I feel strong, but also soft and flexible. My organs and spine just received a natural massage. I’m grateful for the work my body just did for me. I struggle into my coat and hat, thank my teacher and walk to my car. Honestly, I’m usually skipping and grinning like a mental patient. I feel rapturous. Better than the high from any drug, I earned the high I get from yoga.
When I get into my car, I allow a few minutes for the silence to settle. Then I usually put on music appropriately calming like Nick Drake or Cat Stevens. Lately though, it’s been Bjork and the more I listen to her, the more I realize how closely tied her lyrics are to my practice of yoga. In Alarm Call, she sings about how living in the present (without worrying about the future) doesn’t scare her. It’s her Enlightenment. And mine too.
This is an alarm-call
So wake-up, wake-up now.
Today has never happened
And it doesn’t frighten me.
It doesn’t scare me at all.
I’m a fucking Buddhist. This is Enlightenment.
Dealing with a Job You Hate
Posted: February 8, 2011 Filed under: Life, Work Life Balance, Working Life | Tags: dealing with a job you hate, professional life, work life balance 10 Comments
So you hate your job? Get in line. Recent studies show only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs, a record low. The most popular areas of discontent settle around three areas: 1) the job isn’t interesting, 2) salaries haven’t kept up with inflation, and 3) the deduction of health care costs is too high. You’re in good company, but so what? You’re still, as Matt Groening called it, living in hell.
Ever since I started working, I pretty much hated it. When I was a kid I took on mother’s helper and babysitting jobs, which prepared me for a future of being a petty slave to a superior. As a teenager, I worked at a CVS for ‘escape money’, but dealing with the public was equally hilarious and horrifying. In college, I started to get more interesting jobs in art galleries and nonprofit organizations, in which I eventually built my career. After college I’d tried working at a for-profit company, a commercial real estate developer. Even though that’s where the big money was, it was overwhelmingly shallow (and sexist) drudgery which served a singular purpose: lining the pockets of an already-rich asshole. It was the highest salary I was ever offered. I lasted about two months.
I learned my lesson and have spent the rest of my professional career working for nonprofit organizations. The drama level is at Red Alert all the time, and the burnout rate is through the roof, but at least I can lull myself into believing that I’m helping people who need it.
Of course, I dream of a less stressful, more satisfying job. I’d like to be appreciated and respected. I’d like what the Human Resources Department comically calls a “work – life balance”. I’d like to avoid every 8:30pm meeting I’m asked to attend. None of that’s gonna happen and I know it. Over the years, I’ve dealt with these jobs in various ways. Some of them are listed below for your benefit.
Weigh your options. If you’re crying in your office or being a jerk at home, it’s time to quit. I know, in this economy that’s blasphemy. You won’t get unemployment benefits, and you’ll have to start from scratch at a new job, presuming you can even find a new job. You might want to stay where you are and tough it out a few more months before you snap.
If you are staying put for a while longer, do just enough to get by. You’re protecting your sanity here, so don’t be a hero. Bosses take liberties with their employees all the time – you just have to make sure to take advantage of your own little liberties. For example, if no one is looking and no work is pending, I take off a little early. If you get an hour’s lunch, damnit, take your full hour. Get the hell out of that stuffy cubicle and get some air. Do NOT get there early, work through your lunch, and stay late. Give up the ghost of trying to impress your boss with “face time.”
Most importantly (and this is the only thing getting me through), you must work hard for balance. Because you hate your job so much, you need to add in stuff you like to balance your life out. Forget about your job for a minute. What’s going on in your life? Are you just dragging yourself home, eating whatever’s easiest, and conking out in front of the television? Even though that can feel comforting at the time, it’s only compounding your depression because your life is now revolving entirely around a job you hate. For me, I add in things that calm me and make me happy. During work, I try to do a set a pushups for each hour seated at my desk. After work I practice yoga, or work out my frustrations on a rowing machine. Or I throw on my sneakers and run around my neighborhood. Every night, I make sure to prepare a healthy and delicious dinner, and I make enough to take for lunch so I’m not stuck eating fast-food junk. It’s not always easy, but I do it to stay sane. I’ve also learned that treating myself is most worthwhile when I spend on experiences rather than material goods. I go to the opera, to a silent retreat in Maine, and on annual European vacations. I don’t work for nothing.
In life, we spend more time at work with strangers, than at home with our family and friends. The only thing you have in common with these people is that you were randomly thrown together and are forced to surmount challenges by working as a team. Socially, it’s an unrealistic expectation. Professionally, it’s futile. Emotionally, it’s stressful and ultimately depressing. But you CAN take steps to protect your family life, your mental health and your sense of self. Deal with your job, complain away, but don’t let it beat you.
How do you get through your day at a job you hate? What do you “add in” to create a real work-life balance?
Snowbirds – 5 Acts of Kindness in 5 Weeks
Posted: February 6, 2011 Filed under: #365yoga, 5 Acts of Kindness, Animal Friends, Life | Tags: #365yoga, animals, birdseed, winter woods Leave a comment
“Even a small gift could mean so much to someone today.” – Chinese Fortune Cookie
In my attempt to live my yoga every day for a year, I’ve decided to complete five acts of kindness or charity in 5 weeks. The third week of my project turned out to be pretty simple.
As the snow piled up these last few weeks, I’ve noticed how quiet the forest behind our house has become. We can usually see deer, geese, raccoons, hedgehogs, mice, birds and squirrels. With the ground covered in snow for so long, their foraging has been limited to dry leaves on downed tree branches. We went out and bought a gorgeous handmade birdhouse, filled it with birdseed and installed it on our deck.
Nothing. No animal action at all. I couldn’t figure it out. The animals must be desperate for food, right? Why weren’t they flocking to our deck and gorging themselves to the amusement of our watching cats? Maybe it was the cats. (Never!) After seeing a tweet from Nancy (@yoga_mydrishti) about animals needing distance to feed, I decided to give up the fancy birdfeeder. This morning, we threw handfuls of birdseed off our deck onto the snowy forest floor below. Within minutes, birds and squirrels congregated, full of excited birdcalls and tail-twitches. (Our dinner guests are the little specks towards the bottom of the photo above.)
Not a life-changing act of kindness, I know. But an important lesson was reinforced – you can’t help someone else by doing what YOU think will help them. You must meet them where they are, even if it’s not what you envision. Also, you can’t throw money at a problem looking for a solution. The animals didn’t want an expensive handmade birdhouse – they wanted food thrown on the floor. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.
Mystic Smile
Posted: February 1, 2011 Filed under: Fine Art, Life, Poetry, Travel | Tags: art, feminism, Mona Lisa Leave a comment“Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you. You’re so like the lady with the mystic smile.” Nat King Cole knew what he was talking about. The second time I met Mona Lisa in November, she was mobbed by Japanese tourists. But the most tortured lady in the world still has her smile…
Osho – Verse 121.
Posted: January 31, 2011 Filed under: #365yoga, Life, Poetry, Yoga | Tags: Osho, poetry, yoga Leave a comment
121.
Love.
You say you feel broken.
It would be better if you broke down completely
And disappeared.
That which is will always be the case
And that which has become is bound to vanish.
Becoming always leads to dissolution
So do not try to save yourself.
One who loses himself goes beyond life and death,
And he who saves himself is lost.
You are busy saving yourself
And that is why you are afraid of breaking down.
But what is there to save?
And that which is worth saving is already saved.
~OSHO
Ending Estrangement – 5 Acts of Kindness in 5 Weeks
Posted: January 26, 2011 Filed under: #365yoga, Life, Uncategorized | Tags: #365yoga, estrangement, family, personal 8 Comments
“Hope is an orientation of the spirit. It is not the conviction that things will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” -Vaclav Havel
This post is a bit late. Truth be told, it was a bit hard to write. As part of my commitment to “live my yoga” every day for a year, I’ve decided to complete 5 Acts of Kindness/Charity in 5 Weeks.
I have what I like to call a “bad dad”. Dark, mean and larger than life, my dad loomed over my childhood. Ruined holidays, birthdays and graduations were par for the course. My dad was a magnificent liar. He had business cards printed up naming him as a Reverend of the Church, and distributed them to whoever needed convincing. He was a slumlord and a newspaper hustler. At age 7, my dad had me reading and parroting back Rush Limbaugh books, much to his delight. He threatened violence, and sometimes made good on his threats. He was mean to my mom. She divorced him and I lived with her, but he still saw me on weekends convenient for him.
When I was old enough for college, I decided that I no longer wanted my dad in my life. It proved difficult and dangerous to escape him, but after a few years of stalking me at my job, he marginally accepted the estrangement. His mom, my grandma, was heart-broken. “I’ve talked to him,” she’d plead over the phone. “He’ll be better now. If you meet with him, you’ll see.” I loved my grandma, but I never believed her. She had used the same script on my mom after she’d call during family fights. I remembered my dad turning up with a diamond necklace and all would be forgiven until the next fight. My grandma had a perfectly passive aggressive way to get what she wanted – a happy family. Who could blame her? True, she’d raised a monster in my dad, but she got her first grandchild out of the deal.
I felt enormous guilt in distancing myself from my grams. I’d loved her and she loved me for many years before The Estrangement. She’d slipped me sweet treats in the kitchen and fed me traditional Middle Eastern foods. She taught me the few Arabic words I know. She’d tell embroidered tales of my heroic great-grandfather, a famous horseman in Damascus. She was a natural grandma – endlessly forgiving, unconditionally loving and forever delighting in her grandkids. But as long as she kept defending my dad’s abuse, I knew I’d always be pressured to “come back” to him. It’s a much longer story than I’m telling you here, but I’m sure you understand, don’t you?
Until last week, I hadn’t seen my grandma in eight years. Occasionally I’d written her a letter or two, just to let her know I was alive and well, but I had to obscure my whereabouts and anything that could lead my bad dad to my door. I used an anonymous post office box as the intermediary. I was in hiding from my dad and his family. But my grams was patient, and she played by my rules of engagement. And I grew up. I threw off the Rush Limbaugh bullshit of my childhood, and replaced it with Allen Ginsberg. I pursued fine art and received my degree in painting and drawing. I began a yoga practice. I supported myself. I met and married my kind, wonderful husband. We moved around the eastern seaboard, testing out regional accents. I always missed my grams though.
In considering my 5 Acts of Kindness project, I knew my grandma would love to hear from me, but it would be hard to talk to her. What would I say? Should I hide my wedding ring? Would my bad dad spring from a closet? Would the whole thing be a set-up? “I want my family to come back together before I die,” she’d write me. Arab grandmothers can seriously school you in guilt. But I thought about it, weighed the risks, and decided to open myself up to reconciliation.
Last week, I typed her name into the computer and came up with the phone number for her new home in northern New Jersey. After nervously dialing, I was relieved when her voicemail picked up. I left an awkward message, introducing myself, and hung up. Less than ten minutes later, she called me back. Couldn’t get to the phone quick enough. “It’s so good to hear your voice,” she cried. We talked for hours.
A few days later, I went to visit her. As I was coming up in the elevator, I straightened my hair, preparing to see my funny old gran. Was she crippled? Did she stop dying her hair? Had she shrunk? Eight years is a long time when you’re in your eighties. As the elevator doors rolled open, there she was, waiting for me. The doorman had called up and she’d hustled over to the elevator to greet me. I couldn’t believe it. She looked almost exactly the same. Maybe it has something to do with the unconditional love from grandparents and the way grandkids view them as saintly, but she looked lovely. A purple cardigan set off her chestnut hair, which, thank God she still dyed. She burst into tears, reached out for me, and called me her baby. I was overwhelmed by her and took her soft, papery hands in my own. It was like the end of a family movie. One that took eight long years to make.
For something to qualify as an act of charity or kindness, you have to get over yourself. I had to put aside my fears, and the control I held in the estrangement. I had what she wanted – me. I could either keep myself from her and let her worry about her first grandchild (a big deal in Arab families) until she died, or I could branch out towards reconciliation. Whether she relays everything to my bad dad is less the point. My hand reaching out towards hers was the act of kindness. One which took me away from myself, my protection, the wall I’ve built over the years. I can talk a lot about trauma and recovery and familial estrangement, which was the topic of my grad school thesis. But in that moment, and even now after the fact, it didn’t matter. I’m no Mother Theresa, but I knew I was doing the right thing. And it made a lonely old gran very happy. There’s yoga in everything.
My grams turned 83 yesterday. We’re not a big happy family by any stretch of the imagination, but she and I are making do with what we have. As we’re slowly reopening our relationship, I’m realizing that the act of kindness here wasn’t just for gran. Turns out, showing myself compassion was as easy as allowing myself to receive grams’ love.
You can learn a lot by watching how you choose to interact with your family. Ending the silence of family estrangement was a powerful experience for me. In my research on this topic, I found the book “I Thought We’d Never Speak Again” by Laura Davis to be an immense resource.
Branching Out – 5 Acts of Kindness in 5 Weeks
Posted: January 15, 2011 Filed under: #365yoga, Life, Vegetarian, Yoga | Tags: cats, charity, Tabby's Place, yoga 4 Comments
As part of my goal of practicing yoga every single day for a year, I’ve decided to attempt 5 acts of charity or kindness in 5 weeks. My job at a nonprofit organization (and my vegetarianism) keep me in pretty good karma, but I want to do more. I’m challenging myself to be kinder and gentler – with intention toward 5 specific acts over 5 weeks.
I’ve already completed Act One. A nice and easy start, I made a donation to my favorite cause – Tabby’s Place. Tabby’s Place is a cage-free sanctuary for cats rescued from hopeless situations. Ornery cats who are continually overlooked for adoption. Older cats when families just want kittens. Chronically diseased cats when their owners can’t pay for their upkeep. Abused cats rescued from their tormentors. Tabby’s Place takes them in and gives them what they need – medical attention, hospice/palliative care, and love until they are either adopted or pass away.
I have two cats, one of whom is a “special needs” cat. With his chronic asthma, Maori is on daily steroids and we never know when we’ll have to rush him to the hospital to receive oxygen. It blows my mind to think of the thousands of dollars we’ve poured into this incredibly loving, loyal little animal, while others take their pets for granted – or even abuse them. When I first learned about Tabby’s Place, I knew I had to visit and meet all their “resident patients”. I made a new friend right away in Hillary. She was a gray and white tabby, a big friendly girl, sitting next to a gigantic picture window and thoughtfully monitoring the parking lot.
Hillary was missing her ears. Just a furry square head without the pointy triangles which identify all cat silhouettes. When I inquired, I found out that she developed skin cancer from exposure to the sun. Because the skin and tissue in cats’ ears is so thin and delicate, they are especially susceptible to skin cancer. Window-sitting and parking lot monitoring caught up to Hillary. A regular shelter would have put her down, but because Tabby’s Place is dedicated to preserving the quality of life of all cats, their vets knew that a simple operation would rid Hillary of the cancer. After the surgery, Hillary had to get used to losing one of the most precious gifts a cat has – super sensitive hearing. You might think that would make her less likely to, say, walk up to a stranger and beg for head pets. Not so. Hillary still sought love wherever she could find it, but she still wanted to look out the window.
The next time I went to visit Tabby’s Place, of course, I sought out Hillary. To my astonishment, I found her sitting in front of her favorite picture window, basking in the sunlight that almost killed her. To combat the effects of the harmful sunlight, Tabby’s Place staff put a reflective coating on the window Hillary most often sat by. I couldn’t believe it. I was humbled by the kindness shown to one small animal, an animal no one wanted because she had skin cancer. And humbled further by Hillary’s courage, and big open heart. Maybe it was her way of giving thanks.
Anyone who has ever loved a cat knows their mystery, their loyalty, their desire to be independent while also receiving love. They walk the line perfectly. They’re attached to nothing, and they make the best of everything. Cats are actually pretty yogic creatures. So, I made a contribution towards the efforts to protect and nurture them.
Here’s a photo of my “special needs” yogic master, playing in a paper bag.
Stay tuned for more on my second act of kindness: after being estranged from her for 8 years, I called my grandmother and told her I loved her.
Yoga Saves the Day 