Meditation Station

 "Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity."

-Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You-

I could probably ramble and write non-linear-ly about meditation for a million and one pages.  It's an equally inspiring and infuriating topic for me, and probably for everyone who's ever tried it.

An interesting article in the New York times came out last week on how meditation may change your brain.  It seems like every few weeks one of these articles comes out, but they still say the science is very young.

What I always find interesting about these scientific articles about meditation is how they focus on the positive sides - of which there are many, granted - but they tend not to mention how, at a certain point in a meditation practice, it can bring things up that make us feel more agitated and irritable instead of less.  More on that later!

I've always been intrigued by meditation.  It sounds nice - quiet time to yourself, it's supposed to lead to reduced stress and increased clarity, and may eventually lead you to the ultimate:  enlightened bliss.  Who wouldn't want that?
I started a practice on my own without any instruction or mentors to help me and I just sat.  It was the spring of 2009 - I decided that I would celebrate Lent for the first time ever not by giving something up, but by adding to my life.  I called it "devotional practice," and it consisted of getting up at least a half hour early every day and taking my pick of reading, writing, going for a run, doing some yoga, or meditating.  Regardless of my practice, I always tried to tack on at least a little bit of meditation every morning.

It was not what I expected.  For some reason, I think I expected it to be a lot easier to find a quiet mind than it turned out to be.  It was sometimes interesting, often frustrating, and there were many times where it took awhile to get up due to one leg or both having fallen asleep!

Several months later, when I began my teacher training at Sonic Yoga, it was actually required of me by the program to meditate every day.  I was very excited by this outside push and motivation, not to mention the incredible community of people who were going through the exact same baffling journey I was.  It was so helpful to have a community of people to ponder the endless questions for beginning mediators.  How should we sit?  What technique works best?  Should we just pick one and stick with it, or try a different one each time?  Should we just sit without any visualization or mantra and see what happens?  If we think about our boyfriend or dinner or work or sleeping the whole time, does it still count as a meditation?

I still haven't entirely answered these questions.  I really enjoyed my consistent meditation with Sonic, but once Marc and I got together, I fell very hard off the meditation wagon and into the complete and utter distraction of true love.  We've been trying to help each other back on it, to varying degrees of success over the past year.

Most recently, as I wrote about in New Year, I decided to kick off 2011 with a dedicated mantra practice.  My number one new year's resolution was to get serious about my daily meditation practice - once and for all.  It's important to me and I can't let myself and my overflowing abundance of excuses get in my own way of my spiritual practice.

Today marks Day 37 of my practice, and it's interesting.  The agitation and irritability I referred to earlier?  I'm right in the thick of that!  My japa mala practice has been specifically about the obstacles in my life - to oversimplify it, I've been praying for the destruction of the obstacles in my life and/or the ability to overcome them.

Lord Ganesh himself.

Now, I didn't literally think that by doing a 40 day meditation practice that the Obstacle Fairy (aka Ganesh) was going to come and fix all my problems for me.  Not in my conscious, rational, adult brain.  But I did think - I'm sending lots of stuff out into the universe, it's not so crazy to expect a little positivity as a result.  To expect something to come of my efforts.

I think I have gotten something - just not necessarily in the form I hoped for.  The year has been good, but busy and stressful (but then, what else is new?) and I haven't necessarily been dealing with it as well as I've wanted all the time.  I'm working hard on accomplishing all my goals and keeping up with my resolutions, but I've found myself just a little more emotional and a little more cranky these days.

What my meditation is doing is what both Sally Kempton, a renowned meditation teacher, and Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, have written about in passages I've been fortunate enough to read lately.

Sally Kempton writes in an article in February's Yoga Journal, "[The mind isn't] getting more restless, of course.  It's just that when [we] sit down to meditate, [we] notice how restless it really is.  Normally, we aren't aware of the intensity of our inner dialogue.  Our attention is focused on what is going on around us, so unless we are unusually introverted or introspective, the wild and crazy scenarios running through the mind generally escape our notice.  But when we sit for meditation - ah, then we see them."

It's no wonder so many people have such a hard time being consistent with a meditation practice when it can bring up such intensity and seem as though it's not helping.  Not to mention, in this insanely busy world, it can seem like a waste of time.  I know I always like to make sure I'm making the most of my time, and it was a bit of a battle for me to fully appreciate the value of just sitting.  Not reading, writing, emailing, working, working out...just sitting.

Kempton also writes about the unavoidable presence of thoughts during meditation.  They not only create frustration in those of us a bit impatient to get on with the enlightenment already, but force you to deal with issues you might not think about when caught up in the hustle and bustle of the everyday.  When you meditate, it's just you and your mind.  There's no escaping what it has to say except through consistent practice.  As they say: the only way out is through.

I've been wondering where I'm going to go with my daily practice once the 40 days is up on Saturday.  I haven't been sure whether to continue on with that current practice or to switch it up - and if I switch it, then to what?  And for how long?

For all this talk about the difficulties and frustration and occasional madness of meditation, it actually has burned through a lot of my resistance and found a piece of clarity.  The last several days have revealed to me what my next steps should be, and because of that I think my practice has done its job.  Ganesh hasn't magically gotten rid of my obstacles - but I have been shown which ones are most deserving and in need of my own energy to fight.  These things require physical action in the outside world as well as a meditation, but one thing is clear:  we cannot forget the fact that meditation is action.


If you're interested in starting up a meditation practice, there are a myriad of places you can go, websites you can check out, books you can read, etc.  Like anything else these days, it's all just a Google search away.  I did come across an interesting article in The Huffington Post today, though - meditation leader Sharon Salzberg is hosting a 28-day Meditation Challenge for the month of February, though you can join anytime.  The article is worth checking out - it's interesting and at the bottom she has some quotes from some of her participants, including an NYC firefighter and NYC police officer.

It's a yoga practice, not a yoga perfect

That's something we say to kids at Karma Kids if there's ever anxiety or jealousy about not being able to do a pose as well as they'd like to, or one they "can't" do.  Honestly - I think we adults need to hear that far more often than the kids!

I feel like this is my first week back after The Cold That Would Not End, and I've been feeling some stress and pressure about being back in the game.  Momentum is a powerful thing, and I've been feeling very much like mine went missing at Thanksgiving and is stubbornly keeping itself from being dredged back up.  I've been teaching a lot at the Matrix gym by my apartment, I had a challenging but very fun class at Karma Kids, and I'm setting up as many Thai Yoga Massages as my calendar can handle.  The momentum is coming back, slowly but surely, along with my confidence.

One of my favorite teachers in the world, Joe Somodi, started his class yesterday by talking about this time of year.  The first biting freeze of winter, the beginning of all manner of holiday madness, and the speeding rush to the end of the year.  For me, this time of year (which also happens to include my and my boyfriends' birthdays - the 13th and 15th) causes absolute mental chaos.  So many parties and appointments to keep track of, so many cards to write, presents to get, travel plans to finalize.  Pair that with the fact that I'm physically just starting to settle back into my normal strength and stamina, and I've been feeling a little bit like a crazy person this week.

Normally in Joe's Tuesday class, I'm his assistant.  I get to go around the room and assist all the students in various postures as he teaches.  Last night, however, there were only a few of us and he looked over at me and asked if I wanted to practice.  He must have sensed how badly I needed it, and I said yes!

He offered a class of forward folds and twists - designed to energetically to ground the body and bring the mind into a one pointed focus.  It was slow, deliberate, low-key, and absolutely beautiful.  It was just what I needed and suddenly I felt like a yogi again!  I was so down on myself this week for getting stressed, but the de-stresser I needed was always right there in my breath and my body - and it always is.

The practice is everything.  Theory and pontificating (and even writing) will take you only so far, and the amazing feeling you get from a class probably isn't enough to keep you grounded and peaceful for the whole rest of the week.  Practice as much as you can, even if it's just 3 minutes in child's pose.  Practice doesn't mean breaking a sweat or mean that you have to make it last for a long time.  Grab what you can, when you can.  If it's a tough day and you just don't feel it - give yourself a break.  If you're in a class and a challenging pose you've recently mastered is suddenly out of your reach for some reason, don't sweat it.  It's a yoga practice, not a yoga perfect.  Our minds and bodies go through so many spectacular changes during a day, a week, a month, a year.  You will never have the same mind and body in one moment as you will the next moment.  We're in a constant state of change.

So off the mat, what does this mean?  Take a deep breath before getting stressed about December and all its joys and parties and time with old friends and family.  Give yourself a break if you're just too tired to go to one more holiday party, and kick back and take care of yourself instead.

First Steps (aka the obligatory About Me introduction)

Greetings, Blogverse!  I am officially joining the ranks of the millions, billions, and/or zillions of self published and self proclaimed gurus of the Internets.  Who am I to do this, you ask?

Well, I'm Annie Foster, first of all.  Most of you reading this probably know me but if not - hello! I'm starting this little ol' yoga blog for various reasons.  I'm a southern girl who moved up to the Big City from beautiful Virginia this past September.  I had no idea how dramatically and positively it would change my life.

I've practiced yoga for about 7 years total.  It started as an off-and-on thing for when I had access to a gym or did a yoga tape (remember tapes?).  I started practicing more consistently during my senior year at beautiful Christopher Newport University, and after graduating in 2007 my practice really began to deepen.  I thought about becoming a teacher, but lack of confidence, scheduling challenges, or lack of money always made it seem impossible. After I decided to finally take the plunge and move to New York, it was clear there would be no better time (or place!) in my life to finally sign up for a training program.

I chose Sonic Yoga in Hell’s Kitchen for my 200-hour training, and it was the best thing I have ever done for myself.  The teachers there are phenomenal, and the program is life changing.

Since the program ended in December, I’ve striven to continue what I view as just the beginning of a lifelong journey in not just teaching yoga but becoming a better student of yoga.  My teachers referred to the 200 hour training as “yoga nursery school.”  Having graduated and subsequently been thrown into the big world of articles, books, classes, styles, workshops, not to mention more clothes, accessories, and various merchandise than anyone could possibly wrap their brains around, I’ve been yearning for some kind of outlet to help me make sense of this big yoga universe I’ve plunged into.

Hence: blog.

As my career as a full time yoga teacher starts taking its first steps and leaps I hope to make this blog an extension of everything I learn through both study and experience.  I plan to share thoughts on books I’ve read, concepts I’ve learned, and start a conversation with all the lovely souls who are kind enough to read it.

The past couple of weeks have been full of first steps for me as a teacher.  I subbed my first studio class and secured my first regular studio class, both at Creative Vibrations.  I'll be teaching there Mondays at 5:00pm and I'm very excited.  I also taught my first private client (or the first private client who wasn't already my friend, I should say!) last week.  I'm nearly finished collaborating with the excellent Billy Griffin to launch my yoga website.  I have my first exposure to the amazing world of Thai Yoga Massage via the Integral Yoga Institute and will soon have my first 5-day intensive there to become certified.  Lots of stuff is happening and I hope this can be a place where I share all that I learn through my study and practice yoga!

Namaste.