Self-Improvement – Art. Yoga. Adventure. Life on the Road.

Upside Down and Out of Control

As Week Two of my Yoga Teacher Training wrapped, I caught myself marveling that I can, in fact, do hard things. The rhythm of my days looks a little something like this. I get up early and walk to the training through my empty barrio. I wind my way through the narrow maze-like roads, my footsteps echoing off the stone buildings. The maze ends and suddenly there is open sky and morning sunshine as I cross in front of Cathedral de Barcelona. I stop for a quick espresso at my favorite coffee shop that is tiny and local and almost always has the little old man whom I have named Sandro.

By the time I have arrived at the doors of the Yoga Shala I feel ready for the day head. This is when the real work begins: a half hour of meditation. An hour class of yoga. Learning different asanas (postures) and how to correctly do them and teach them to avoid injury. After learning, there is more practicing these asanas, and then, sweet relief…breakfast. The rest is short lived because next comes another full hour long class of yoga, this time led by one of the students (yours truly included). Then there is some more learning, more stretching, and I realize that I have made it through another day.

Week One I characterize with the word “Ow”. “Ow! My arms!” As I shrug on a coat. “Ow! My shoulders!” As I pull my purse over my head. “Ow! My legs!” As I walk out of the Metro station, climbing the handful of stairs to the street level.

Week Two “Ow” faded away and I realized that I was craving this daily movement. “Ow”, I realized, was shifting to “Wow”.

Wow, I made it through Week One and Week Two. Wow, when I stop my body wants to keep going. Wow, I can’t believe I just did that.

Wow, especially, today.

In life,I do not like going upside down. At all. I do not like roller coasters. I could never do a cartwheel as a child. As a swimmer, I chickened out of learning the acrobatic “kick-flip”, where you do a little somersault under water and kick off the wall, shaving valuable seconds off of your lap split.

And in all of my years doing yoga I have never, ever done a headstand.

Until today.

There was no great build up to this. We were in our first yoga practice of the day like any other, and we were in some variety of a Surya Namaskar (sun salutation) when we were guided simply and gently into a headstand preparation. Internally I rolled my eyes, willing to go as far as a downward dog, when our teacher walked behind me and encouraged me to “just kick up”. And in what turned out to be an anti-climatic moment, I did.

I did a headstand.

And it wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t dangerous. It was strangely…peaceful.

I came back down safely and found respite in a quiet child’s pose. What had been holding me back all these years? I told myself I did not have the strength to do a headstand. I convinced myself it was unsafe. Every yoga class that incorporated it I would sit back on my heels and watch. I’ll just sit this one out, I would think as my yoga progress stalled at this very place again and again.

While I am not on my way to the Olympics for swimming anytime soon, I also see how my progress in swimming has stalled as I opted out of kick-flips. Joining leagues or Premium swim teams always felt so out of reach – how would I explain that I cannot do this simple little somersault a child can do?

As I lay curled into a simple child’s pose I realized with a start that all of this delayed self-growth was in the spirit of… not losing control.

I mean, who likes to lose control? Control of our time, of our work life, of our love life – “losing control” has a notoriously bad reputation. But what if this learning to let go, to loosen the reins a bit and trust the process is exactly the moment when we become a better version of ourselves? What if…we face our fears and come out the other side relatively unscathed. Perhaps that is the moment when we realize that we are less fragile than we thought. That our inner strength is actually much greater than anything we ever imagined. Today it’s a headstand. But how will this one little headstand reshape my opinion of exactly what is possible – and what might be next.

What if…I feel the fear and do it anyway? The start of my Journey to 200.

It was the winter of 2001 when I saw the ad. The whole country was reeling from the 9/11 attacks. The dust was still settling over the two craters in the earth where the twin towers had been, and the collective heartache was palpable.

I was a travel agent at the time of the attacks and my entire industry felt unsteady. Layoffs were happening around me and travel shops nationwide were silently shuttering their storefronts. I wondered what was next for me if my job, my career, disappeared.

I was looking for something, anything, to soothe the constant anxiety I felt boiling in my stomach. All of the ‘What If…‘ questions racing through my head were keeping me up at night. What if... I lost my job. What if…the travel industry collapsed? What if…I could not continue living in San Francisco? Where would I go, what would I do?

By the time December hit I found that I was depressed, anxious, and feeling completely out of my body. I scribbled out my New Year’s Resolutions to take better care of myself, to find something, anything, that would let me take some of my power back.

I found a tattered paperback copy of Richard Hittleman’s 28 day yoga plan (original publication date 1983) at a thrift store for $2 and dedicated myself to his method. The black and white photos of the nearly naked swami led me through asana on my living room floor. At the end of the 28 days I noticed I was feeling a bit better. I reasoned that if at-home yoga was good, surely in-studio yoga would be better. As I searched for studios in the Bay Area, the ad popped up: Free Yoga Teacher Training.

The teacher’s name was Tai Sheridan, PhD. Tai was a zen buddhist priest and in response to the 9/11 attacks he was choosing 12 people to take part in his teacher training for absolutely no cost. The training was not about core strength, the depth of your downward dog, or how strong your headstand was. Instead Tai was hoping to spread peace. He reasoned that if he taught teachers how to access loving kindness within themselves, they would go out into the world and teach others how to do the same. He hoped that this would tip the cosmic balance back into a place of love rather than hate.

Impulsively, I applied. There was no logic to this decision. I was a complete novice at yoga. I had never taken a studio class and all of my training had come from a long haired swami in a diaper from a publication nearly twenty years old. I told Tai in my application that while I wanted to join, I worried I wasn’t ready. Would the downward dogs I did while watching Friends be good enough?

I was stunned when I received my acceptance letter. Stunned and a bit panicked. New ‘what if’ questions flooded in. What if…I am not strong enough? What if…I am not ready? As the travel industry continued to crumble around me, I felt that I had no choice. This was going to be my new path.

I faced my fear and each Friday I would drive across the Golden Gate Bridge toward Marin County, the sun and the fog doing battle as the city receded behind me. There was the asana practice in the morning followed by long meditations. In the afternoon we would discuss theory and the practicalities of teaching. And every time we gathered we somehow drifted into long group discussions about the events of 9/11. We cried together as we processed the loss we collectively shared. In this sacred place we healed. I walked away a year later feeling hopeful for my blossoming career as a yoga instructor.

But life had other plans.

I went through a divorce. The travel industry did crumble. I moved out of state. I searched for stability and built an entirely new career, one that paid the bills. Yoga, as much as it had been the thing that healed me all those years ago, became the hobby I did only occasionally as the years slipped by.

It has been 22 years since that yoga teacher training, and oh how life has continued to change, shift, ebb, flow, and delight. That great destabilizing time in my life pushed me out the other side better for it. I discovered love again, married a wonderful man, went back to school, and found a calling that helped others. It wasn’t yoga, but I was spreading peace in my own small way.

Yoga still calls to me. Perhaps that is why, on an impulse not unlike the one twenty years ago, I applied for another yoga teacher training. And just like last time I am pushing myself into uncomfortable territory. The fears are almost identical to how I felt twenty years ago. Am I ready physically? Am I ready emotionally? My last training was gentle and healing, but this practice promises to be intense and invigorating. At nearly 44 years old, I wonder: Am I too old to be doing this? Will I be the oldest there? Will my body withstand the month of daily asana? Will my mind be patient enough for the half hour daily meditations? I am nowhere near getting into a headstand, is that a problem?

I let the thoughts wash over me and take a deep belly breath. As I slow my racing thoughts, a new, surprising ‘what if’ question presents itself.

What if…I can absolutely do it, and be better off for it?

In that moment of clarity I feel something shift. I am going, age be damned, ability be damned. If I have learned anything in life it is the power of feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Middle age can feel ominous. I try to remind myself of who I am: a bad-ass Gen-Xer who does not have to let herself be defined by age. In that ageless space I take this moment and say Fuck It.

Here we go.

I leave for Spain in less than a week to complete my training. I plan to keep weekly updates on my Journey to 200 Hours. I hope you join me.

Italian: Level 1

My beloved and I made a deal before our European adventure: He would try to learn some French, and I would study Italian. This would cover us, we figured, for the month that lay ahead of us. My Italian would help us through a five day hike through the Dolomites, Venice, Cinque Terra, and Florence. Then we would head to the South of France and finally Paris, where my beloved would navigate us with his French.

Fluency felt like a fool’s errand since I was starting from scratch, so I set a goal that felt achievable: order an Americano or a bowl of pasta without sounding like a complete jackass. Every morning leading up to the trip I poured myself a large cup of coffee and settled in with my Duolingo app, the little cartoon characters cheering me along. By the time we landed in Italy, I could clumsily order food and drink.

When we started planning our return to Italy, I realized I wanted to get serious about Italian. Now that I had this foundation, I glibly told myself, what if I became fluent? The fact that I reasoned a few months of Duolingo was a foundation was already magical thinking, but the dream had taken root. I caught myself daydreaming of my newfound fluency, my head thrown back in laughter, sharing a joke with a local as I trilled along in flawless Italian.

I searched for classes at the local community college. I looked for Italian tutors. I explored small language schools. It was around this time that I read a piece by David Sedaris, where he referenced that he used Pimsleur to help him learn languages. If it’s good enough for David, I reasoned, it’s good enough for me. On that logic alone, I downloaded Pimsleur and away I went.

I would pop in my headphones and take our dog for her morning walk, zig-zagging my way through the cul-de-sac, mumbling out loud as I repeated phrases that left me wondering what in the hell was going on in Italy.

Marco: “Do you speak Italian?”
Gabriella: “A little.”
Marco: “When can we eat?”
Gabriella: “Not now.”
Marco: “Later? Can we eat together a little later?”
Gabriella: “No, not now, and not later.”
Marco: “What about ten?”

I found myself mentally chastising Marco. She said no, Marco! Leave her be! Then, a plot twist.

Gabriella: “No, I am married and will not have dinner with you.”
Marco: “You are married? Where is your husband?”
Gabriella: “He is back at the hotel.”

I thought about the people I passed by as I walked. Did they speak Italian? What must they think of this woman muttering to herself this Italian soap opera? I began questioning the Pimsleur method, and frankly, David Sedaris, but pressed on. Gabriella returned to the hotel ostensibly safe and I returned home, hoping that this would all somehow pay off.

I practiced every day, wondering to myself who was responsible for the scripting over at Pimsleur. After the, let’s call it pushy, section between Marco and Gabriella, we progressed to the section dedicated solely to asking after someone’s family. This felt like less dangerous territory to tread into, but I found myself rolling my eyes and questioning whether or not I would find any real purpose in knowing how someone’s child was, how old someone’s child was, how many grandchildren someone had, and where on earth all of these children lived currently and in the past. Where were the phrases that would get me checked into a hotel? Or the phrases that would educate me on finding the best pasta in Cefalu?

Trust the process, I chastised myself. Just keep going.

By the time we landed in Palermo, I had finished Level 1. I realized all of the conversations I had been listening to had given me the power to string together a reasonable sentence to check us in to a hotel after all. I was still patting myself on the back by the time we hit the street on the hunt for Real. Italian. Pasta. We made our way to a highly lauded ristorante promising molto autentico Sicilian cuisine. We walked in and, discovering that no one spoke English, I realized that this was it, this was my moment.

I cobbled together words for “Table” and “for two”, undoubtedly from the section with Marco and Gabriella, and was pleased when the woman responded kindly. After ordering, I noticed an older gentleman hovering around our table. As soon as I made eye contact he rushed over to check on us. As it turned out, this was the owner of the restaurant, and the woman who sat us, his adult daughter. And here it was, Pimsleur in all their glory coming through for me.

“How many children do you have?” I asked, my memorized lines from Pimsleur flooding back. His eyes lit up and he smiled as he told me he had three children, and six grandchildren. Then he proceeded to show me pictures of everyone. When I asked where everyone lived, both past and present, he answered with delight. Eventually he drifted away and we enjoyed our pasta and seafood, my eyes wide staring at my beloved. “Well I’ll be damned. Pimsleur worked.”

We are currently planning our next trip. This time we will be five weeks in Spain and I have again turned to Pimsleur for help. Now as I waltz the streets with my dog on her leash, muttering phrases about needing to work hard, I feel confident that someday soon I will be in a conversation and think: Well I’ll be damned. Pimsleur worked.

Resolving…again.

Every year on January 1st, since I was a child and at the bequest of my mother, I have sat down and written a list of ten resolutions for the year ahead. As a ten year old, and then eleven year old, and eventually a twelve year old, I dreaded these planning sessions. Me, stationed next to my mom at our breakfast table, a stack of lined notebook paper, blank and formidable, in front of me as I tried to figure out what exactly I wanted to change about myself in the year ahead.

Get better grades.
Be nicer to mom.
Quit fighting with my brothers.

I would finish my list and pass it to my mom, who would nod approvingly and dismiss me from the table. While publicly I would disregard this activity as lame or boring, privately I hung my list on my bedroom wall, pushing it into place with a thumbtack, my reluctance shifting to hope as I silently thought this is going to be my year.

I suppose my mom was trying to foster resilience in her only daughter, a life lesson born from a road-weary understanding that life is hard, but bouncing back is half the battle. And bouncing back each year I did: no matter where I was in the world, my list of ten was crafted and pinned up on whatever wall I called home at the moment. On the wall of that crappy apartment in San Francisco. In the commercial warehouse I lived in illegally that had no walls around my bedroom, technically, but had a decent post to pin my list to. In that craftsman style house in Seattle that I shared with three others. And nowadays on the wall of the sweet home I share with my beloved in Arizona.

December comes and I feel the itch, that familiar pull to write my list and start dreaming of the year ahead. It is my annual ritual of hope and resilience. I may not have crossed every item off the list the year before, but I see the power in moving the needle just a touch. Looking across the span of the last thirty years (my very own longitudinal study), I see the impact of my resolutions. The biggest accomplishments – starting as a high school drop-out who lived in her car to becoming a college graduate and eventually earning a Master’s Degree – can be traced back to the mindset shifts that appeared on my list, year after year.

Don’t give up.
Quit procrastinating.
Don’t be influenced by the opinions of others.
Establish boundaries.
Show up for others.

It is so easy to get swept up into instant gratification, and in a culture where Insta and the like sends the message that success happens overnight, the truth is that success is often a long burn. It starts with the germination of an idea, a small seed that is watered and nurtured and over time, sprouts new growth and eventually is a bonafide, living thing.

This past year has been a moment of deep, profound personal growth and reflection. Read: it’s been hard, y’all. But here we are, at the start of the new year, my blank page ahead of me, and no matter how hard it has been, I recognize that familiar spark of hope. It’s time to bounce back, and move that needle again, even if it is just a nudge.