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OPEN MIND OPEN BODY The Yoga of Connection |
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Week 51: More Responses to Homework, and the Final Homework
This week, some more responses to the homework question from week 49 and your last homework assignment. Final Homework One of the purposes of an email class like this is to send weekly reminders of things you already know, but need to hear anyway. In the flood of messages we get that reinforce destructive beliefs and behaviors, it's important to have some reinforcement for the ideas and behaviors that lift us up. Each week, I've sent a message that might be what one or two people need to hear in that moment. Some emails hit and some emails miss. But for next week's email, I'm looking for a direct hit for each and every member of this community (who is still reading the weekly emails!). Six years ago, a meditation teacher led me through an exercise of identifying what I needed to hear in that moment. After I said it out loud, she repeated it. It was a simple exercise, but one of the few times I've cried in the context of receiving a teaching. (The thing I needed to hear at that moment was, "No matter what happens, I can handle it.") This week's homework is to identify what you need to hear. What would instantly dissolve suffering, if you really knew it to be true? Please email me your answer to this question, so I have the opportunity to reflect it back to you. If you haven't participated in this class recently (or ever!), this is the homework to do, for the benefit of the whole community. Without a doubt, if you need to hear it, so does someone else.
Homework from Week 49: What belief about the world, or part of your identity, are you ready to let go of?
Response #1: What I'm ready to let go of: The father who raised and loved me; the strong, smart Dad I knew, before his mind began fading from dementia and his body became frail.
Response #2: What belief about the world, or part of your identity, are you ready to let go of? *I feel ready to let go of the concept of "romantic love" that has limited my understanding of what a long, lasting love with a partner could feel like. This vision was shaped entirely by pop music, movies, and TV as I was growing up... and I've begun to realize that it is very constricted and often based on very unhealthy concepts. *I feel very ready to let go of having the answer. I would like to find a new perspective in my teaching practice (and the rest of my life) that does not make me speak from a position of "authority" - because I feel it is very difficult to be curious at the same time. *I would like to stop asking people "How are you?" reflexively, especially with a tone that implies that I am looking for an upbeat answer. *In general, I have become a lot more conscious of the degree to which any identity/label comes to confine me more than it supports me. I am trying to use language like "I teach yoga" rather than "I am a yoga teacher." or "I also paint" rather than "I am an artist." and so on. I feel these statements leave the doors open inside my heart for me to shift around in life without having to work up the courage to re-create my "identity." I keep coming back to the idea of having a "looser" relationship to my concepts of identity, so that I am more free to "move about the cabin." :)
Response #3: I really need to let go of some stuff. Specifically, the need to control other people. Many times I do this without even realizing that I am doing it...I wait for them before I do something, I clean up after them (emotionally and literally), even when I don't want to. If I could only let this go, I think I would have so much more clarity in my directions in life and security in myself. I could trust myself more and probably have more fun.
Response #4: This is the most painful topic for me to reflect on and write about. I began recently to focus on attracting into my life a real love relationship, which I never really had before. I attracted someone into my life who was a reinforcement of an identity I forged many, many years ago that kept my sexuality separate from emotional intimacy. This person fooled me because he had so many of the qualities I am looking for in a man and I felt absolutely desperate not to lose him. But he did not want the same thing that I do and it ended up being exactly the same kind of relationship that I always find. I finally had to face the reality that I have been holding on to an identity that has been preventing me from finding love, and I need to be honest with myself about who I really am and what makes me comfortable and happy. The feelings of shame, humiliation and loss that I'm experiencing after 43 years of holding on is overwhelming but I am praying for the strength to find acceptance and finally, finally move forward. *****
Take care, Kelly Share your reflections at http://www.openmindbody.com/discuss Explore the class archives and audio files at http://www.openmindbody.com/2006emailclass/archive.htm For both sites, use the Login: yoga and the Password: connect
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