Embody Mental Health

Posts Tagged ‘yogini’

O for a horse with wings!

William Shakespeare

SO THIS IS YOUR PASSION?

I am sitting on the plane trying to whittle out the nuances of stories, looking for a way to bottle the last three days of experiences in the container of words.  It’s hard.  The woman next to me looks anxious and I brace myself for another flight next to a severe flight-o-phobe but instead she asks me why I was in Tucson while staring with curious amusement at the large and stiff ring of rope I am trying to stuff below my seat.  I say, “Horses,” but seeing that she isn’t quite satisfied and her eyes, still shifting between me and my lasso ring, are asking for a little more than a one word description.

I pause, thinking how to encapsulate what I was doing in Arizona, knowing that whatever I say could be less than enlightened.  I tell her I am a mental health therapist and I work with horses to help people through emotional problems but admit that I am trying to learn more about riding and horsemanship for my work.  She pauses and then in rich rolling espanol she says, “So this is your passion?”  Both question and answer, as if something in my eyes or the tone of my voice revealed the not-so-hidden-truth.  I smile, sigh a deep ujjayi breath, and say, “Yes.”

THE PRELUDE…

I knew in going on this journey out west and into the mountain-ridged skies of Arizona that I would be confronted with many things: emotional truths, passions envisioned, and dreams taking flight.  I set out from West Palm Beach prepared with pen in hand, yoga pants in tow, and hiking boots–yes, I still had not yet managed to get myself a good pair of riding boots.  I knew there would be yoga, creative exercises, mindfulness, and riding.  It was a yogini-equine-therapist-writer’s dream!  Although, before even landing I was already very nervous about the riding.

My riding experience was limited to the blissful summer camp experience and a variety of trail rides in a variety of countries; all with horses that were either spastic or sleepy from being over-riden by clunky tourists (like myself).  All my therapeutic “horsemanship” came from face-to-face time with my four-legged counterparts, not bottom-to-back.  I remembered the little girl who fearlessly cantered on her last day of summer camp and I hoped to rediscover some of her bliss–but I was afraid that age had only instilled skepticism and fear where imagination and bravery used to reside.  But as my stomach flopped with daydreams and fantasy I was hoping there was as much childlike excitement to outweigh the adult mind’s pesky critical thinking.

CHASING DREAMS TO THE BORDER OF MEXICO.

In the southeast corner of the southwest, an hour south of Tucson and less than an hour north of Mexico sits the unassuming town of Sonoita where the biggest restaurant is gas station adjacent and you can map out every constellation in the night sky.  I had chased my passion all the way to the Mexican border and found bliss on the first morning waking at the Xanadu Ranch, named by the owners since they had carried the sign and their horses from Ohio to New Mexico and finally settling on a large stretch of land in Sonoita.  Three black horses grazed in the tall dry grasses and the quiet of the air and the laziness of the hammock out in front of my door made me think I could spend days just hammocking my way to a higher state of being.

I had come out here to commit.  To commit to the dream of mine that included horses, yoga, and healing–something I believed in so strongly and had seen impact people so profoundly but I wanted to experience it at the other end of the lunge line and see what my clients saw.  In creating Prana Equus I knew I was giving myself over to my dreams but in coming out to Sonoita I was giving the dream wings and seeing what magic might come from seeing a space of healing outside of my own little cul-de-sac space with Angel Smile Farms and Maurette in South Florida.

I think the first morning, 9:00am, sun brightly shining through the windows of Shelley Rosenberg and Nancy Coyne’s yoga house on the property of their home and their barn, breathing in unison with my workshop-mates Deb, Cathy, and Ann at the direction of Nancy Coyne (MD, psychiatrist, and yogini-du-joir) I realized this was a special space and I was about to share a wonderful three days with a beautiful mosaic of souls.  Maybe horses can’t sprout wings like the golden Pegausus in the photo above but my dreams and my work with them felt like they were already taking flight to new and beautiful lands–in my mind and on the ground in every deep ujjayi breath.

So. This is my passion.

Nancy whispered softly with a little hint of jest, “Welcome ladies to the Om Hotel…you can check out, but…well you know the rest.”  I felt like I had come home inside and out.

CHECK OUT THE NEXT POST IN THE SERIES “GREETINGS FROM THE OM HOTEL”…UPCOMING!

 

Eat Heavy by drp on flickr

 

I am from New Jersey.  This is a givenl but it is a much more invasive condition than might initially be assumed.  It is chronic, it is systemic, and it is very hard to cure.  This is not genetic, it is environmentally caused and did I mention it is very hard to cure…it may be medication resistant. 

 

When I moved to Colorado, after three years out of the environmental contaminant, I was nearly cured but I moved back to the affected locale  before any chance for a cure was made permanent and the condition resurfaced quickly–followed by a brief severe allergic reaction at being exposed to the hazardous materials again (no, not the garbage, the temperament). 

 

Seriously, I got hives.  They said it was a “sudden allergy to penicillin” but I am certain that Jersey was the root cause. 

 

I am now in Florida, the Sunshine State and although by their nicknames–as NJ is the Garden State–they might seem like close cousins they are in fact…not.  I had a store clerk the other day tell me, “Welcome to Heaven.”  I cannot recall similar conversational kindness in the Garden State–unless of course there were manslaughter in the mix and sarcasm on the tongue. 

 

I am having to recalibrate my response to the world at large in a huge way.  It is taking a lot of concerted effort and a lot of environmental medicinal treatment.  The more smiles I get, the more at ease I am with facing the world with smiles.  The more cordial conversations I have begun with me without alterior, sinister motives or hands in my pockets searching for my wallet, the more trusting I am of the endeavor of cordial conversations.  I am having to relearn the finer points of being human, sad as that is. 

 

I realize that although I knew the therapy room was a place of safety and a haven for my clients in New Jersey, a place they could open up and be themselves without fear of aggressive reprisals, I had not realized that it had been one of my sole bastions for the same.  My clients were open and emotionally vulnerable in their sessions and it was a refreshing alternative to all of the evasive, suspicious, aggressive bombardment that the outside war zone that was the metropolitan area had to offer. 

 

Many will argue that I am being dramatic.  Those from the area–native carriers of the illness of Jersey-itis–of course will adamantly disagree…it is, unfortunately, part of the affliction.  Anyone not from the Metro area who has come from infection-free zones will probably agree, between panicked breaths into a brown paper bag.  

 

I remember feeling in a constant state of panic and a constant sense of being accosted during the months following my transition back into the Garden State from Colorado.  I remember moments of near tears on the Garden State Parkway wondering where my life had taken me and why so many people were so angry at the same time–usually either 8am or 5pm. 

 

Now, all this said, I love New Jersey and the metro area–it is a sincere love/hate relationship.  I am tied to my sickness but I know I would be healthier without it. 

 

I love:

 –All night diners (yes, this goes at the top of the list).

–Every kind of food from anywhere in the world cooked excellently.

–An eclectic collection of everyone from around the world all in one place.

–Every kind of museum, art gallery, Broadway show, and pretty much anything else you can imagine, including that kitschy Naked Cowboy in Times Square all about 15 minutes away. (Addendum: everything is about 2-10 miles away that you could ever desire but traffic and subways and everything else that makes it so congested so that 2 miles on a map will take you 30-50 minutes at least)

–My family and friends.

–Alot of memories.

 

But at this point in my life and my health (mental and physical) it felt necessary to exit the infection zone before my condition became permanent. 

 

So, slowly, very slowly, I am learning things like kindness and patience and looking at skylines for abnormally long periods of time.  I am working on appreciation and accepting the kindness of others, and learning the social protocols for reciprocation.  It is a slow learning curve, as I recall from Colorado, but very much worth the effort.  I look forward to following my condition until full remission is achieved.  I am optimistic about the outcome.

 

Namaste (“The light in me honors the light in you”). 

 

May I be the very best Floridian, very best yogini, very best human that Florida and my inner better self allows me to be.  I will update my status when I am fully infection free.  I cannot “fix” the nature or course of my medical conditions, a fact I struggle with every day, but if I can remedy a locationally induced mental affliction then that is a pretty good start…or so I figure.

 

** Evidence in this satiric diagnosis may have been slightly exaggerated for effect.**

  

  

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Mark Twain

Eros by drp on flickr