Learning how to receive

Over this holiday I received a gift of money. I was astounded, surprised and very grateful. This was un-budgeted, unexpected cash. Over the last several years my "wanting" has decreased. We live close to the bone, within our means and it suits me. I have no pressing need for any material goods. I am of an age where I have collected all I want and have all I need. My kitchen has pots and pans, my closet has clothes that fit, and I have ceased craving the next new design or color for my towels and sheets. I have it all! I am totally grateful and aware, deeply aware, that not all people can say even a fraction of that.
But this was a surprise and it opened up the door on wanting, the revisiting of craving. Was I going to toss this money into the "bill" maw and allow it to be part of the PGE, the water, the insatiable gas needs of my truck? It could certainly go there. It could provide some measure of security, some "prepaid" assurance against some unforeseen need like tires, or a house repair. But I didn't want to do that with all of this bounty. I did feel like I needed to practice receiving. This was a gift to me, an opportunity to do or have for myself something that I wouldn't permit myself otherwise. I don't often see the gray, but this time I did. What if I used some for myself and some against a rainy day?
So I did. I registered for on online course on intention and self care. I am taking: Living on Purpose; Group Coaching on Deliberate Creation - with Rolf Gates. I have been thinking for a while that I would like some time for self development: development that has, at its end purpose, my own self care. I have a habit, an unfortunate focus of intent, of signing up to learn things SO I can teach. Take a sculpture class so I can better explain it to others, take a training so I can lead and so on. It is important that I be in service; but just now, while I face a lot of new and unknown things I need to, I want to, take care of myself. So this wonderful gift of surprise money allowed me to take advantage of this idea I had; taking care of myself, without having to purloin funds from the family fund.
First step in self care... learning how to receive. I guess that is the second part of the present.

Growing and Changing

A new class is being formed for Yoga and Recovery - Y12Sr - starting Monday, January 9, 2011 from 7 pm to 9 pm at the Gyalwa Gyatso Buddhist Center in Campbell. I am excited and feeling a little anxious. It is the kind of anxious I feel when I have invited folks over and the table is set, the food is all but finished, the house is clean, the towels arranged just so in the "necessary". I am ready and it is only four hours until the guests arrive! Not really, but it feels like that. The preparedness and the forward looking combine to being both in the past (preparation) and the future (arrival). The present looms large with the sensation of no NOW. Really, the NOW is all there is and being really there, in the moment, in each moment without the distraction of things to do, or conversations to begin, or projects to start, is very uncomfortable. This is actually the perfect time to practice now-ness.
While I experience anticipation and excitement I will make these days about being where I am; practicing the fullness of karma yoga. I do all that I can and let go of the results. Sounds almost like the program, doesn't it! Ha - tricked again into practicing the principles in all my affairs.
Happy New Year!

A Heart Cracked Open

I Love It - For Real, for real.

I am going to take several days to integrate what I discovered and learned (which are quite different things) at the Yoga and Addiction Recovery Conference at Esalen this past week. Nikki Myers, Rolf Gates, Vinnie Marino, Noah Levine, Carrie Coppola and Tommy Rosen all shared with a generosity of spirit, an authenticity and availability that touched me deeply. Among the intense experience of somatic release, meditation, 12 Step sharing and dharma talks my mind, body, spirit and emotions found corners of my heart. These areas had been long protected. I let them emerge without having to analyze or explain why they had been hidden. This abrupt awakening left me with a heart cracked open. I felt this with my body in the form of tears, in my emotions as a sense of increased vulnerability followed by a sense of alertness and aliveness, and in my spirit with renewed love and affection for both myself and others. Yes, for myself and others. Both. What a gift.

Stay tuned for more.

In the meantime my article on the breath was published in the Dynamic Living Magazine. Click here for more!

Preparing for November Workshop

I am so delighted to be able to present my workshop on Yoga and the 12 Step Path November 13th at the Gyalwa Gyatso Buddhist Center in Campbell. I am going to focus on the Yamas and the Niyamas as well as lead a gentle yoga class. I am still contemplating and meditating on the actual content of each section and that gives me an opportunity to listen to and reflect upon the truth of these tenets in my everyday life. That is where the yoga lives in me - in the truth of my thoughts, speech and behavior in everyday life. These concepts are not just to be part of reading and discussion (although that is a starting point). These concepts come alive as I practice them - not only out and about with people I don't know, but with my family and friends, as well as in my heart and mind when conversing with myself. The addict lives strongest in my brain and the practices of yoga need to winkle themselves in there to soften my heart, calm my mind and bring the actions of self tenderness into the day. So here is to my practice and I look forward to sharing it with you. Come join me Sunday 11/13/12. More information will be forthcoming.

Y12SR - back from Leadership training and "my heart is full"

I have been back from the Y12SR Leadership training for several days now. It has taken me awhile to assimilate and absorb the information. Y12SR is a meeting format that includes both an all recovery path 12 Step based meeting followed by a one hour yoga practice. The focus or theme of this yoga practice comes out of the energies discovered during the meeting. How to lead and read the meeting, and how to bring this understanding to the mat were the foci of the training.

The training began with developing an understanding addiction and recovery. The importance of self knowledge as well as "felt sense" as keys to relapse prevention were discussed. The workshop went into the somatics of trauma. It also led us to an awareness of the issues of pre-judgement and understanding how our life experiences can impact unconscious inclusion or dis-inclusion of others. She also described how these experiences can affect the processes of leadership. Our "short comings" and personal triggers can have an impact our effectiveness. Exercises were practiced to experience the pitfalls that can arise in group situations.

It was challenging and affirming, educational and emotional, informative and inspiring. Nikki Myers presented amazing material. Most importantly she led us into ourselves to help us FEEL how this information both affects us and affects how we impact our environment.

The process of being in recovery profoundly informs how we are in the world. How we are in the world has a big impact on how we are in groups. How well we know ourselves and our own behaviors and discernment can have a big impact on how effectively we can lead groups. Effective leadership in this setting means creating a safe sacred space and leaving room for others to find their way to healing.

This was a mind - wide opening workshop, led with skill and grace by Nikki with an amazing group of yogis. While this training is not gender restrictive - this particular class was exclusively female and we made the most of this constellation of goddess energy. Sharing freely and deeply I feel a deep sense of closeness and bonding with all the women who were there. Thank you all for your contributions, empathy and love. Namaste

New friends - old souls

The Y12SR and Sunday night yoga classes have new students. I am enriched with knowledge, insights and struggles brought by each new person who comes to class.
I have had the delight of getting to know a young person who is the friend of one of my kids. An "old soul" who has wisdom and kindness, yet has experienced so much pain from the journey to wholeness. Coming back to the class week after week I get to hear the serenity being developed, the healthy solutions being sought and the tenacity that grows out of living a life in recovery one day at a time.
I have met people further along their path of recovery who want or need to expand their tools of coping and soothing. Yoga coupled with the tools of recovery do fit that bill: yoga philosophy giving an additional framework in which to discuss our recovery ethics and what it true to us. Yoga movement helping to release the tensions that have built over time. Pain in the spirit, the body, and the mind can be lovingly addressed and let go.
I have met people who are not sure what the problem is: self or another, personal behavior or the "unacceptable" behavior of a loved one. Sitting in the discussion circle, hearing what is read and said, can help unravel the confusion. Taking it to the mat can assist working things out; as the body moves through the poses - the subconscious mind can move through what has been said. Sivasana can then integrate the activity of the body and the enlightenment of the mind.
So new folks are arriving each week; some stay , some drift in and out, but I am always left with the honor of having been in their presence. I am grateful.

There is a publisher for my book!

"Yoga and the 12 Step Path" may well soon see the light of day! I am so excited, I am savoring every moment of this process of becoming published. A year to write, four months to edit, five weeks in the hands of an able agent and a decade to experience, research and live.
It is exciting to experience this stage of the journey and I am in each moment OF the experience. At this time my healthy brain is allowing me to be in the gratitude and joy of the moment. Rather than anticipating what may come, or being anxious about my choices up until now I am bathing in the beauty of now. Gratitude and the breath make the miracle of each minute real.

Aparigraha - Non-attachment

Aparigraha - Letting Go

You have heard it in the rooms of recovery; “Let Go and Let God”. Holding on to the result of actions, feelings, events; trying to control outcomes or to predict the unfolding of events all cause suffering. These attributes of clinging, gripping, even greed can remove one from the moment and catapult one into a dissatisfying future. Yoga advises adopting the restraint of Aparigraha – or non attachment.
Do what is mine to do and let go of the result,  relinquish the clinging to an expectation, a considered outcome; what is usually "my way".

Developing Trust, and Being Trustworthy

On the other side of the coin is the fear that by NOT holding on, that I am uncaring or acting in a non-caring way. Somehow attachment and gripping had come tomean “connection” or even “love”. I didn't know that I could love or could care without being possessive.  I was possessive and attached to the out come, to the manner or its performance, or the event. When I let compassion and care, gratitude and trust be in my heart, when I do find union with and reliance on my higher power there is no need to grasp or hold. Life events, like a breeze or a gentle wave, move in and out a proper rate and duration. I need do nothing but breathe.

Kyczy Hawk E-RTY 500 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. Join her on www.intherooms.com  Sunday mornings at 7am PST at the Yoga Recovery meeting. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at www.yogarecovery.com

Ask Kyczy about Yoga and Recovery; Brahmacharya - Non-excess

Yogic Yama - Restraint

Brahmacharya used to be translated as celibacy but now is more accurately defined as non-excess as it refers to all facets and characteristics of our being. It refers to all our passions and our desires. It can refer to time spent, money spent, and energy spent: to excess.  It can refer also to the velcro attitude in relationships and all the ways we can over do things.

The disease of MORE

Doing; doing doing doing – we are always doing something. The more we have to do the “better” we are. The more impossible our schedules the more valuable we are in this over indulging society. Free time is not only a fantasy for most – we don’t know what NOT to do with it when we have it.

Wall off the spirit; find the door

Another danger of excess it that overindulgence can be a mask, a thick goo of someTHING that covers a true need and blocks the spirit.  Food, things, sex, time; we find a way to over use and justify our excesses. Then to top it all off – I am an ADDICT! As an addict (and in my less than healthy state) there is NEVER such as thing as too much – so non-excess doesn’t make sense to me. Then there is my recovering self; that self that does not want ever to return to the madness of “too much of a good thing is a good thing” where good is relative.

With that desire for recovery Brahmacharya become one of my restraints.  So I keep Brahmacharya in mind when I work with my recovery and work with my yoga practice and when I work with my life.
With the help of others and with a sponsor / mentor the core of the issue can be revealed and resolved. This is the core of step work and the core of yoga practice.
Finding the point of enough, the grace of sufficiency, the divine in needing what I have and having what I need – that is my practice. That is my struggle and it is my reward.

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 www.yogarecovery.comhttp://www.yogarecovery.com