T.B. Pasquale

Posts Tagged ‘change’

Yoga can be a wonderful personal practice–body, mind, and spirit.  Through asanas we can bend our body, stretch our muscles, and flex our physicality.  Internally we can learn to quiet the mind, decrease anxiety, and find inner calm and centeredness.  In the intangibles of spiritual connection we can find through space to breathe we find connection to something larger than the self, something part of a collective whole and a union that persists inside ourselves and out.  From this we can, if we choose, extend that unity further.  If we choose.

I am coming to the close of my teacher training, beginning my “Yoga for Trauma Survivors” class and planning forward working and preparing for a variety of upcoming talks on mind/body wellness, yoga for mental health, and complementary therapies at the NASW Conference in Florida, at hOMe yoga in Mahwah, New Jersey, and in a graduate elective at a university here in Southern Florida.  As I prepare to move out of this phase of my life, an intensive training phase, and into an intensive action phase I think of the extension and arms of yoga.  How far can yoga reach?  As far as your mind and metaphors can reach–and much further forward than I can stretch in forward bend.

Karma yoga, selfless service, and yoga as action is becoming more and more synonymous as yoga communities are taking the internal calm of mind that comes from meditation and a quiet graceful posture and using that clarity to effect change in the world around them.  Such figures as Seane Corn and her “Off the Mat and Into the World” campaign highlight the ways in which yoga and a well-known voice can be channeled to create change both on the mat and in the world at large.  But we also don’t need to have a voice that is known to say something of value.  Yoga can imbue us with a sense of strength, empowerment, grounding, and centering and these essential tools of being can be taken by any yogi or yogini and be tailored for wherever your heart and passions might lead you.

I wrote earlier this month about Swami Padma, of the Sivananda Center in San Francisco, and his work to bring yoga to inmates in the California Prison System.  This is just another example of one person’s passion creating a ripple effect, a focus on a cause that might otherwise be ignored, and monies and services put in place as a result.  Imagine what you could do taking a combination of your passions, creativity, yogic centeredness, and spirit for action and creating change in the world.  Whatever your passion is, wherever your voice takes you, you have the potential to effect change for a population or a cause that otherwise could have been ignored.  What you believe in matters.  What you fight for can make a difference.  Lending your voice, even if it is just the voice of one, can change the hearts and minds of many.  We all have the potential to create ripples of change in this world; even ripples that could extend farther and wider than your imagination can imagine.

Lately, as I extend and deepen my own yoga practice, center inward more in meditative moments, follow my passion and lend my voice to what I believe in the more it seems that voice and these words of mine seem to blossom and grow branches upon branches.  I am still not sure how far this will take me or how much I will be able to do but I am setting my sights on infinity and anything along the way, on my pursuit, amazing and beautiful things are happening.  Connections are being made, changes are happening almost organically, and the contagion that is my own passion seems to spread as I open my mouth, write my words, and purvey my dreams for what could be.

My aspirations reach as far as creating a nonprofit and learning institute that could bring complementary therapies and yoga for mental health to a variety of populations at low to no cost as well as train persons in the field of yoga, mental health, and complementary therapies how to integrate the two and be sensitive to the needs and issues of mental health populations.  I believe healing and the capacity to heal can emanate from all manner of creative and holistic approaches and in my own trauma healing yoga, contemplative practices, and animal-bond/relational experiences have been profound.  I want to extend these tools to anyone I can.  So for now I will speak anywhere I can on the matter, create programs wherever I have the option to, and hope for a future where I can reach past the branches of my own dreams into something even more profound than I could imagine.

What do you dream about?  What do your passions lie?  What would you do to effect change in the world you are in, the life you have, and using whatever skills or knowledge you have at your disposal?  It is amazing the well of talent and internal resources we all have.  Every person is the authority on something or passionate for something that might be ignored by everyone else.  Every voice matters!  How are you going to use yours?

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Victor Frankl

 

I grew up in a Catholic household where following every waistline testing, engorged bellied Thanksgiving came the ritual setting up of Christmas trees, decorating, and beginning the countdown of the Advent season.  As a young girl all that really meant was getting out the calendar covered in glitter and surprises waiting behind every door.  You open a door every day of the Advent season (the month leading up to Christmas) and either candies or pictures would lay in wait behind every door opened, or cardboard cutout removed.  It was magical, scintillating joy that comes only from the simplest of places and requires so little tangibles, only a wealth of imagination and anticipation–of which I had in overabundance as a child. 

 

Today I find so many rich metaphors and symbolism in this past time of Advent.  Advent meaning in any terms, “The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.”  As we creep towards the new year and holidays for a variety of faiths and creeds that symbolize new beginnings, rebirths, births, renewal, and change we are all free to celebrate this season of advent, the advent of change in one way or another. 

 

I find myself at a precipice of so many things and at this precipice I find myself assessing so much that is and that which has been in my life the last year or so.  In the advent of change in my own life I find myself pondering the present and looking expectantly towards the future–something like the adult version of my childhood self, wondering what magic awaits me behind the next door I open. 

 

There is a freedom and beauty in this time of year to shed old skins, start fresh with new journeys and to return back, with childhood wonderment, to a place of memory and nostalgia of what holiday seasons and preparations can be. 

 

I hope everyone has filled their bellies and laughed with the ones they loved this Thanksgiving season and that everyone has something they are shedding and something new they are on the precipice of beginning.  Take time to sit in your own advent of change right now.  What is the arrival of something important you are waiting for, the new project, new adventure, new journey you might be about to begin?

 

I began this blog to catalog my journey through yoga school, a tangible and solid goal.  What I have realized is as I have written, as life has meandered on a course part created by me and part formed by that which has happened in my life, things have shifted.  I have realized that, like Advent, this story has taken a more symbolic and metaphoric route.  “Yoga School”, as it were, has become everything–it is my life, my journey, and the yogic path and insights that have imbued my every step. 

 

I owe many a personal revelation to this blog and the ideas that have sprung in the writing of it.  As I creep closer to the time that I will begin my literal yoga school I realize that, that journey is only a small pieces of this larger adventure and misadventure I am on–my yogic education is this whole process, this year of change, this advent season on the precipice of beginning new and wonderful adventures, everything that has come and everything that will come, in and out of a classroom.

 

Happy holidays to everyone and I hope we all can explore together as the year comes to a close the advent of the new that we may all be on the brink of. 

 

 

“Life is a constant Advent season:  we are continually waiting to become, to discover, to complete, to fulfill.  Hope, struggle, fear, expectation and fulfillment are all part of our Advent experience.”

Life Is An Advent Season, Connections, 11-28-1993

 

 

Metaphorically–Singing in the rain, metaphorically.  No one, trust me no one wants to see me sing, not even in the rain.  I save that glorious pleasure for solo car rides and loud showers. 

 

The intent of this post is to talk about, from a very personal perspective, trying to find the silver lining, see the bright side, look at the glass half full, and any other kitschy association to taking our unexpected roadblocks as opportunities to carve out new trails.  I am trying very hard to keep that mindset and, surprisingly, I find the more I search for the better the more “better” appears. 

 

 

 

 

In the 48 plus hours since writing my bright and spirited “The Year of the Dog” post many things have happened and many subsequent decisions have been made–the initiator to all being that my husband and I found out that his guarantee transfer that had lingered in “on hold” for a month had fallen through due to beurocratic blah blah blah.  That left us wondering, “What next?”  This is what we came up with:

 

1)  My husband is going to continue working in New Jersey through November 6th and try to get a few more checks worth of money in before we, potentially, become a house no longer divided in half but one with a household income divided in half.  He will then move to Florida and actively look for whatever job possible, hopefully in his area of passion which is substance abuse counseling, but anything to bring some income in to supplement my salary.  He will also be returning, to my great pleasure, to school to obtain his Masters in Social Work starting next Fall 2010. 

 

2)  I will, to my great displeasure, have to postpone my Yoga Teacher Training by two months and begin the next series of trainings in mid January.  I will be a single doggie mama with three pups at home and cannot in good conscience (without ending up on Animal Planet Cops or feeling like I should) leave them home from dawn till past dusk so I can pursue my holistic dreams. 

 

3)  On a completely different note I have decided it may be necessary to look into Doggie Ritalin.  I am beginning to wonder if there can be a genetic marker in a certain breed for ADHD–if so Jack Russell is that breed.  My little Gracie is an unstoppable, unflappable, unending spring (literally, she bounces straight in the air like a spring) of energy and, possibly, psychosis.  O.k., so I may not be feeding her handfuls of puppy prescriptions anytime soon, but I may have to invest in some kind of doggie treadmill–if there is such a thing.  I think the only thing my Jack Russell birthday puppy has taught me about thirty is that thirty may be too old for a Jack Russell puppy.  But we will forge forward, my family of dysfunctional fur-babies and I:  Guinness the Neurotic, Gaia the Narcissist, and Gracie the Psychotically Hyper. 

 

 

A 48 HOUR RETROSPECTIVE…

Going backwards in time to 48 hours ago I was not sure what to do or what to think about our sudden family perdicament.  Part of me wanted to cry, part wanted to scream, part wanted to just give up.  Fortunately none of those were a dominant enough part of me to reak unproductive havoc although each part of me had its moment in the last couple of days. 

 

I thought about a thirtieth birthday in a real limbo and spent alone 1200 miles away from my husband and in a state of uncertainty about more than the number 30.  I thought about the potential pressures of getting all the bills paid and the scary prospect of not succeeding.  I thought of aspirations of sitting in a dimly lit room, breathing, learning, and meditating daily falling away as were my plans and hopes for all things related to this October. 

 

Money & Meditation: two completely converse distractions.

 

So, I thought, how could I feel so hopeful Monday and in such desperation by Tuesday.  I realized the only piece I could affect between the two was not the money or the postponed meditation but my perspective, perception, and state of mind.  All these strengths I have been building on the past month or so on this blog finally came to an application head–I needed full forces aligned to find the light in the storm, the brighter side, the inspiration to sing even in the rain. 

 

I thought about how my husband’s job falling through had gave him the final push necessary to actively pursue his masters degree–a very good thing.  I thought about how having the next two months to get our lives in order, the household in order, and actually have some time with my husband when he gets down here in a month was perhaps a bit of a blessing.  I thought about how much all of these trials of reality have brought my marital relationship to its strongest place and taught my husband and I an immense amount about ourselves individually, the other partner, and us collectively.  I thought that while I don’t know how I feel about the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason,”  that I do believe more and more, “We can find reason and purpose in everything that happens.” 

 

 

So I find myself 48 hours later in somewhat of the same state of mind as I was originally.  It took me a roller coaster of thoughts and emotions to get here and an immense amount of support, some unexpectedly beautiful, from friends, family, and coworkers, old and new.  And most important, the mutual support of my husband and I, for each other as well look at each other partner’s respective difficulties within this predicament. 

 

And to give a little bit of melodic sound (if not actual singing) to the storm, my husband called last night saying that he was able to find a dirt cheap flight for Thursday, October 15.  So I guess I will not have to resort to party hats for the fur-kids and dogfood cake for my birthday after all–yes, I contemplated it. 

 

But more than that I realized how touched I was by my husband’s gesture towards me, our relationship, and to the importance of a birthday not spent alone.  I found myself, last night, on the other end of the phone crying tears not of self-pity or anger but of gratitude–no one was more surprised than I at how much it meant to me to have him give such a gift to me and to our relationship. 

 

Those tears were like an emotional prize I had won for getting to where I had without the pitying tears. 

 

Tonight I sit, while somewhat emotionally exhausted, quite bright again.  Not Jack Russell psychotically bright, but optimistic.  And looking forward without trepidation…and counting down the days until I have a two parent team for this dog-full household.

 

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The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churchill