Suppressing Anger

Suppressing anger can be toxic.  Just as resentments are a form of taking poison hoping the subject of your feelings dies - so can repressed anger churn and infect you.

What happened was this: someone said something uncaring and unkind to me.  The top of my head blew off.  Well, it felt like it.  I was swelling with rage in my body; heart rate was going sky high, my breath was shallow, my blood pressure spiking, my voice became shrill and the urge to scream was nearly overwhelming.  My arms were just vibrating with the barely constrained desire to pummel this person. WOW!  I am a woman in long term recovery.  I am a yoga practitioner.  My daily prayer is to be compassionate, to be loving, accepting and forgiving.  Where was this kinder person now?

I pushed these physical manifestations of fury aside.  I still retained enough yogi in my character to slow my breath consciously, to soften the muscles in my neck, to unclench my hands and jaw.  I mentally talked myself into a semblance of homeostasis.  Not complete, but out of the trees where my animal self had sprung.

I tried talking it through.  My ability to communicate was impaired and my ability to listen was non-existent.  Discussion went from misunderstanding, to rude and then to downright mean.  I could not continue. I left.

With my stomach churning with acid and my body aching with the fever of suppressed anger I tried to lie down and "sleep it off".  I could not. The thoughts kept swirling in my head. "What did I say or do to cause this?" "Why can't he understand me?" "I shouldn't be angry! That isn't an enlightened way to be! What is wrong with me!" And so it goes, the second arrow hits, the self recrimination for feelings felt.    I am now going down the rabbit hole of thinking that I cannot be angry.  "Self righteous anger is the dubious luxury of other men" comes to mind. If I am a good "AA-ette" then I will avoid anger.  If I am a good practicing yogi then I will follow the path of non-harming and contentment.  Well - now I am mad, I am not a good practicing member of my 12 Step program and I am a sham of a yogi.

Danger Danger Danger:  This is toxic thinking.  Not only can anger be appropriate,  I would be out of touch with my emotions and myself if I denied myself an actual human feeling. One does get angry from time to time.  Pushing the anger down, repressing it, started to cause me to feel a total failure - not just around this issue in this relationship but in all spheres of my life, particularly those I held most dear.

In the denial of my feelings I was continuing to feed my sense of negative self worth, that part of my that I have spent YEARS trying to heal.  This kind of activity will lead me to emotional relapse. Unabated other addictions will kick in.  My disease wants me to be overwhelmed with emotions and self doubt.

The mindful way back into my true self, my complete self, my healing self, is to admit the emotion, see the anger, feel it and feel it pass.  Yes - it will and does pass.  With breath and acceptance that THIS is what I feel, not act upon, but feel will allow the sensations flow through and to leave behind the lesson.

There are lessons.  One - I had a profound physical abbreaction - a nearly out of the body experience of rage that I did not act upon.  I repeat this for my own well being: I did not act upon this rage.  Two -  with time I have been able to unpack, to uncover, the real source of the pain that lay beneath the anger; the pain, the fear, and the need.

As I investigate the reason that the words hurt so much and look into the history that lay behind my reaction I am able to respond and discuss the situation.  I can take care of my side and be open the other side.  My ears were open now that the sound of my blood pounding in my head has abated.  My physical reactions to anger have subsided so my voice has a softer quality, my lips are no longer thin with hysteria, my pupils no longer dilated with rage.  I can use words that are more expressive of true feelings and explanations and we can talk this through.

Amends are a huge part of my recovery program, not just the frequency with which I seem to need them, but for the lessons that the situations provide.  I learn about me and I learn about you and I change my behavior, and, with luck, my outlook. In time the amendment, the transformation, becomes permanent and I move on to the next challenge.

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path" .

She leads two Y12SR classes a week for the public at Willow Glen Yoga in San Jose..

Kyczy is the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse). This certification training now available in an ONLINE study course.  http://www.yogarecovery.com/SOAR__tm__Cert_all.html 

Scroll to the end of the page and sign up now.

Check out her ONLINE RECOVERY INFUSED YOGA CLASSES: 

http://yogarecovery.studiolivetv.com/MemberRegistrationYR.aspx

Universal Laws of Being Human and the Seed of Change

I have a note on my desk. I don't know where it came from but I have saved it.  I pick it up from time to time and say to myself - "oh yea!  I forgot about this."  It is the Six Universal Laws of Being Human.  I don't know where it originates.

The six universal laws for being human

1. You will be given a body.
2. You will be taught lessons.
3. There are no mistakes in life, only lessons.
4. If a lesson is not learned, it gets repeated.
5. The more often a lesson is repeated, the harder it gets.
6. You know you’ve learned your lesson when your actions change.

Ok - numbers one and two I can grasp.  The rest remain alternately elusive and redundant.

Number One: You will be given a body. This doesn't state what condition it will be in, what I can or will do with it nor how it will age.  Just that I get one.  Check.

Number Two: You will be taught lessons.  I didn't always consider the occurrences, challenges and even the joys in life were lessons, but I do now see them as such.  

Small disappointments- how do I handle them, how did I get into being disappointed, how do I manage or not manage to get into similar situations where disappointment may or may not be a result?   This is the nature of a lesson.  

Harder to see is the lesson as the result of terrible things happening; to myself, to family and to others. Illness, accident, surgery, loss. These "lessons" come from outside.  Sometimes they are do to life choices, life styles, or behaviors. If I persist in a dangerous or toxic behavior there is a great possibility that I will receive a lesson in the form of an illness or loss.  If I am harmed through a random event there is less I had to do with the event and no likelihood that I could have avoided it.  The lesson, again, is how I respond and how I engage in the outcome.  

Even joy has a lesson:  do I trust my joy, to I grab ahold of the joy trying to keep it, do I watch the joy. observe it and let it go.  Trying to hold on to joy can result in choking the current experience and missing the next.  In trying to maintain a level of happiness or pursing happiness as a goal can sour the present moment with the fear of losing it. So even joy has a lesson. Check.

Number Three: There are no mistakes in life, only lessons.  Now to a more obscure law. Mistakes are unintentional, they can be random.  A mistake kind of absolves me from responsibility.  "It wasn't my fault that X, Y, or Z happened - it was a mistake."  Things that happen in life which are seen as mistakes can also seem cruel;  the death of a child, the loss of a job, and unjust incarceration.  How can these not be MISTAKES?  And then I think again,  while they were not correct- they were opportunities.  Opportunities to learn and grow.  An event may be a universal fluke - but a lesson can be derived, saving it from being a useless occurrence.  Having something happen and writing it off as a mistake - would be a mistake.

Number Four: If a lesson is not learned, it gets repeated.  I have experienced this many times.  It surprises me in its simplicity and in its relentless truth.  There are times I learn a little, but not all. I learn some of what there is to be gleaned from the event, but only the surface. I need to experience the lesson a few more times to get to the bottom of it, to get to the fundamental truth I have to face.  Being a woman in recovery I do spend some time mining my past for the lessons.  Many of the events, dramas, and instances I have been party to, have created or been victim of seem to be teaching me one thing, when the real truth is something different.  A simple example would be that I close down when my feelings are hurt.  A word or a look said in anger can slay me.  I shut down.  I used to think I was shutting down to punish by withdrawing.  I now know I shut down to punish AND to protect.  I protect myself from further harm by abandoning and cutting off the person who has hurt me.  (there is a further lesson here about boundaries; another subject for another day.) I dig deep , I find my piece, I understand my reaction, I get a lesson.  If I don't get the whole lesson the process gets repeated.  
Number Five: The more often the lesson gets repeated the harder it gets. It took me a while - but I see this now. There are probably only a dozen themes in my life: financial insecurity, fear of abandonment, desire to be seen / heard, the need for companionship, and feeling like I am not enough  are a few of them.  I avoid the negative and grasp for the positive.  This grasping and avoidance cause me problems. I get lessons about the difficulty this grasping and avoidance creates in my life.  I wish the lesson would STAY LEARNED, but evidently I forget.  I have felt heard, I have felt being seen and accepted - and the feeling dissipates.  The difficulty comes when I look outside myself for the security and resolutions. The more often I reach outside the more painful the disappointment. Looking inside, I am content. The lesson is look within.
Number Six: You know you have learned your lesson when your actions change.  Yes.  I have had a very successful experience with this in terms of my addiction.  The Pain of using became greater than my fear of stopping.  The lesson was learned, the actions changed and... the lesson stays learned.  In other parts of my life I seem to go back to numbers 3-5 again and again. I eat more than I need to and I gain weight. I eat more wisely and I lose.  My actions changed.  And then they didn't.  I have become much less defensive in recent years.  Defensive reactions caused aggressive or dismissive behavior from others.  I changed my behavior, became more matter of fact and clear and others began to treat me differently.  I changed my behavior and my situation changed.  

With these six laws of being human I can both feel myself being part of the universal connection with others, that my difficulties and dilemmas are not unique.  I also see the path out.  As in recovery the path out is ACTION.  I must make a change for there to BE change.  The struggle comes in finding out the nugget of change the seed of change the internal core that needs to be addressed. I need to find this OR my issue leaks out in another similar behavior and I am led to the same lesson.  
Being patient, being slow, taking time with the examination of the issue and the lesson will guide me to the action that I need to take.  So it isn't so hard next time.

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path" and a leader of Y12SR classes.
Kyczy is the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse). This certification training now available in an ONLINE study course.
  http://www.yogarecovery.com/SOAR__tm__Cert_all.html Scroll to the end of the page and sign up now.

Check out her ONLINE RECOVERY YOGA CLASSES: 
http://yogarecovery.studiolivetv.com/MemberRegistrationYR.aspx

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors - AlAnon and Yoga

I remember that quote; "good fences make good neighbors",  from Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall" since reading that poem in school.   As a regular part of the curriculum we were asked to read and analyze it and I did my best.

This poem is complex and deep (as are all his works) and yet I never really understood this one beyond its surface when first presented with it in school. Young and literal, without much self knowledge or life experience, I had no idea why the teacher was so excited about this poem.  Wall, no wall, whats the difference? It is a low stone wall, a mere sketch of separation.  It falls down easily in hard weather and is maintained in its precarious state in the spring.  My understanding had no depth; I had life experiences but no perspective or context.  I did my anemic best.

As I ponder the line several decades later I now wonder about it as Frost did; "what are we walling in or walling out".  There is nothing observable - like cows to restrain- and yet we repair the wall. The wall is real, the wall is symbolic, the wall is emotional, the wall is social.  Sometimes you, and sometime me - maintain it to keep a semblance of wall between us. 

The wall can define and it can also protect.  Understanding the difference is crucial to know what the wall IS.  When considering "to whom I was like to give offense" one must INCLUDE ONESELF in the equation.

Trimming shrubbery in the yard the other day, coming up close to the neighbor's yard the line popped into my head.  This fence used to be a low iron railing and the elderly neighbor and I would chat.  She passed away, the house was sold and a new fence was built.  It is now a tall 'privacy fence" and I no longer know my neighbor.  I muse on that.

I also muse on boundaries and how I need them in relationships, in defining what is my business and what is not.  Having a clear sense of self, honoring and maintaining the actions associated with being a separate human being is important. It also teeters in confusion when I think about being part of the universal whole.  Being part of the universal whole, however, does not mean that your business is mine, what is yours in mine, that my choices are yours. 

The wall does not have to be large or wide or in complete repair. There is a healthy sense of self that is important to acknowledge and a healthy sense of YOU that needs to be acknowledged;  the wall is reassuring, the wall is a reminder.  That, even though "something there is that doesn't like a wall"; we and our neighbors maintain it together "and on a day we meet to walk the line" setting it up mutually once again.

My mat, your mat, my practice, your practice, my side of the street, yours, the manifestation of my ethics and your practice of yours;  all are separate.  Impact is mutual; expression is unique.

If I know where you stand and you know where I stand is it not more comforting? When my edges are blurred and meld with yours, move with yours, become dependent upon yours, the fences down, confusion and unhealthy interrelations can occur.

The wall is necessary until its purpose is understood. Once understood it can be considered to be useful or not useful.  Its use must first be known.  Then a choice can be made - to keep it in repair or to let it crumble away.

Read the poem and see what you think about it: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/mending-wall


Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) a teacher certification training now available in an ONLINE study course.  Scroll to the end of the page and sign up now http://www.yogarecovery.com/SOAR__tm__Cert_all.html

You may also take her ONLINE recovery infused yoga classes 
http://yogarecovery.studiolivetv.com/MemberRegistrationYR.aspx

Resolve to Love and Forgive

 

Many years ago I was on that treadmill of creating lists of things I would do differently ("on your marks, get set, GO!") in the New Year.  There would be some magic difference in my ability to control my eating, spending, or what have you after midnight December 31.  So the obligatory list would be made, gym memberships would be purchased, the requested workout clothes received as Christmas gifts would be laid out and ready for my body toning enterprises.   I was ready for the first run out the door on January First.   Planning to eat for health, I ate the last of the holiday cookies and chocolates as I selected recipes for the new year out of magazines and news papers: the food columns themselves having taken a lean turn after the indulgences of Thanksgiving and other holiday offerings.  Promising to live within my budget I reviewed ads for what bargains I could find in the post holiday sales.  After several years of dissapointments and broken committments I dropped the resolution process all together.

While I didn't think I was perfect, I was tired of falling short of expectations and being part of the joke that resolutions had become.  In addition, the things I truly wish to resolve, or to continue to practice, have little to do with money, weight, or the physical trappings of life. My resolutions are balanced between "A Day At A Time" and setting intentions for living (a decidedly future looking activity.) Balanced between my current step and the path before me, I make resolutions daily.  The sankalpa, or resolution, is of an enduring nature, a quality that I struggle with but wish to enhance and encourage in myself.

Rather than look at what I may want to accomplish I am looking at how I will get there.  Today I will forgive myself for mistakes; leaving more room for the successes to flourish. Today I will take care of myself when I am not well, using the skills I have learned to promote healing in body, mind and spirit.  Today I rejoice in the times I have taken right action.  Today I will practice the discipline of follow through AND congratulate myself for tasks completed. Today I will Love Myself, as I am before all that is to come, and I will Love Myself in spite of all that has come before. I am lovable.

2014 is my year to inhabit my very BEing.

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) a teacher certification training she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at www.yogarecovery.com

You Are Amazing

Guest blogger Jean Campbell from the Transformational Power of Yoga telesummit team shared this post with me.  I feel uplifted each time I read it.

Today I am open

Open to possibilities

Open to love

Open to change

Open to success

Open to laughter

Open to miracles

Open to appreciation

Open to seeing myself as the truly amazing person that I am!

- Katie Sullivan

This post is from Jean Campbell at Jean's Yoga for All

Jean is a lifelong student of yoga and teaches Vinyasa Flow yoga classes in Vemont.

If you would like to join in her free upcoming online series

21 Yoga Poses in 21 Days - Click here:
eepurl.com/JSw3f

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RYT500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse); a teacher certification training that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the SOAR(tm) training at yogarecovery.com 

Being Guided Home

I have vivid dreams. Many are just sequences and stories- others are events and may be entertaining.  Some of them, however,  provide insight and guidance.  These I make an effort to remember.  This was true the other night.

Many nights ago I had been having dreams about my death.  I no longer find these frightening; I have come to realize they are about change and not my final "transition".  I know change is coming,  I have thought about my actions and activities and know that a shift and realignment is due.  I am uncomfortable so the dreams help me work it out.

Last night's dream was about encouragement and grace, bravery and being guided. 

Last night I dreamed about being in a small boat, like a canoe or a kayak.  I was on my knees gazing towards shore.  I was in the ocean, in a bay, not just any bay, but the bay outside the harbor in Lisbon, Portugal.     

 (Note that Lisbon is a sister city to San Francisco, also with 7 hills and a bridge by the designer of the Golden Gate.)


I was paddling in from the ocean toward land - but I had no paddles; I was using my cupped hands.  There was a passenger in the boat but I could not see him or her behind me, I was just aware of their presence.  Even without the aid of the paddles I was able to make headway kneeling in my boat, paddling with my hands.


The fog was rolling in.  Within minutes my sight of the city was completely obscured. I had no idea where to head.  I was frightened but not panicked.  My conscious brain was surprised by this reaction while my dreaming brain accepted it.  (This bifurcation of dream and "conscious mind" thoughts happen often in my "message" dreams.)


The forwarder I went, the more lost I became.  When I was on the verge of leaving dismay and finding fear I looked deep into the fog and there in the fog were projected numbers - the latitude and longitude of my location.  I just had to keep moving in the direction of the appropriate latitude and longitude of my DESTINATION and I would be guided home.

Like a clock that projects the time on the wall or ceiling, this guidance was projected in the fog which prevented me from seeing land, making the fog the perfect screen for the perfect pathway to lead me home. While in real life I don't know these map references for any town, city, or neighborhood, in my dream the meaning of the numbers and the ability to understand them became mine.

My resolve as I paddled into shore and delivered my passenger safely was to go back, using my special skill, the vision to see this guidance, to help others who struggled to find the harbor.

And then I woke up.  I woke up and woke up.  I know what my change is about and I know without a doubt that if I don't panic if I look carefully, I will find signs, signals, and support to get me where I am meant to be.  I need to get there under my own steam, the use of my hands when paddling. I may have extra weight (perhaps the "old me" in the back of the boat?)  I may feel on the verge of fear but if I look up and around I will find just what I need to see to help me home. 

www.yogarecovery.com

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RYT500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse); a teacher certification training that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. 

Find out more about her, her classes and the SOAR(tm) training at yogarecovery.com 

Freedom As The Result of Boundaries

When saying NO means saying YES

I am learning to have more boundaries.  I know, kind of late in the game to be acquiring this skill; better late than never.

Part of saying NO (thank you) is being able to weather the sting of turning someone down.  I have a wonderful, replete life filled with people I love, care about, and want to spend time with.  Some of the saying NO means I am choosing to be away from them.  This doesn't feel good, and I learn to live with the discomfort.  I am choosing to say "no" to one thing to say YES to another.  This feels selfish.  It is. I am learning to be SELF-ish.


I urge others to take time for themselves, to hold themselves sacred and dear.  I truly mean these words. In fact I have self care routines that can ground and prepare me for each day.  What I have been neglecting is to play.  To take classes myself, to do something where I don't have a specific defined outcome or productive result. Many things I do have an outcome: a meal, tidiness, a newsletter, an accounting report,  a class taught or a class given, a project completed.  I was craving NOTHING; meaning nothing productive, useful, or goal specific.

I needed clay.  I had to decline some wonderful friendship opportunities this past weekend. I had to say no to some otherwise really fun stuff.   I had to do this so I could sit down at the wheel with a few pounds of mud and make something for no reason.  I made pieces that I crunched up and put back into the clay bag, I made pieces that started out as one thing and became another.  I allowed myself to be a newcomer, a neophyte, a beginner and that took the (self induced) pressure off.  And the next day I needed to follow up; trim and decorate.  First time at the wheel in over a year.  I needed to do this just for myself and not for sale, a gift or to explain or teach.

Well,  I also needed a yoga class, particularly after that first day of throwing; my body was out of whack.  And rather than DO IT MYSELF; I was determined, in the name of self care, to lay down my mat in front of another teacher and to be cared for.  It was perfect.

By creating boundaries in my life I was able to find freedom: freedom to play, freedom to create and freedom to be a human BEing - rather than a human doing.  As the result of saying no AND saying yes I am refreshed.

The courage to change: from being an active addict and codependent to being a woman in recovery.  The courage to change: from a driven woman to one who can let go of the steering wheel: I wish each and everyone one of you the strength to say NO in order to say YES.

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse); a teacher certification training that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at yogarecovery.com