divineroots
by Liisa Robinson
Divine Roots Blog
Hip Checkin’
I am committed to this world being a place where there are spaces for all kinds of bodies. Of course, in my generation, thinness was a very valued commodity and to be anything else other than thin or “skinny” was in all sorts of ways that I won’t bother describing to you today presented as less than, or gross, or lazy, or some other nasty term. The messages may have been slippery and at times subtle, but the weight of them hit girls and women in our culture like a wrecking ball. Other times, there isn’t even a disguise on the message, it’s just harsh.
Now sometimes a body i
s holding more weight than it might need for very good reasons. Sometimes a body / mind / spirit is ready to let go of weight that is holding it down. Sometimes though, it’s just a body that is at it’s healthy spot and that’s not culturally acceptable. There is a healthy spot for all bodies. It shifts over a lifetime and with other factors in our lives. We know when we are there because we have energy when we wake in the morning, we can move, play, lift heavy things, chase after kids, dogs, or dreams and have energy to spare.
Given our culture, there is a part of me that is happy to see some more attempts at body positive messages on the internet (and in my own fitness centre). I am, however, a little torn by some of the messages which are attempts to create space for muscular, strong, and curvy bodies. At my gym, they are selling shirts that say “strong is the new skinny”. There is a part of me that wants to cheer when I see this shirt. Yes, strength is fantastic. But…..(it’s coming after the second example)
The second example is a picture that has been running amok on the internet… 
Again, there is a part of me that wants to cheer for the girls who have hips and curves that look like the ones on the bottom row. But….
Okay, here is the BUT. But we are still saying there is one way that is okay to look. Yes, strength is GREAT. Yes, those women in the bottom row are beautiful women to look at. But how much space do these images leave for all the other women. How about black women? How about butchy women? How about women who use wheelchairs? How about size 18 women? (this list could go on forever!) Yes, yes we know Marilyn was a size 14. And honestly…how much space does this leave for “skinny” women?
I’m more than a little troubled by the likely amount of plastic surgery in the top row and I am going to refrain from guessing about how each woman nourishes herself…but there are women out there who’s natural (read: I have energy, I eat when I’m hungry, I move and rest my body when it needs it) body size is a very slim build. I’m not sure we need to slam these women to make space for my hips. I know women, who are naturally thin, who struggled with “knobby knees” and “boy hips” and “fried egg breasts” in high school (and even as adult women). As long as there is one or two or three looks that are acceptable, we’re all still stuck! Yes, strong is good, and skinny as a fitness goal was never a great or healthy goal, but I’m not sure I’m going to be wearing one of those shirts anytime soon because I’d like to leave a little more space for my skinny sisters.
So, for the love of Pete…could we just make a little more space for ALL women instead of having to hip check some of them out to make room for white, able-bodied, pouty-lipped, size 14 hips???
Please note: the information on this blog is not intended to be therapeutic. Your own knowledge of self (perhaps supplemented by your own therapeutic relationships) should supercede advice or thoughts read on the internet.
On Yoga Styles and Sneaking Into Class
I am often asked about where else I teach yoga in the city and which styles I recommend for people (and also where I personally practice!). A student asked me the other day what I thought about a particular style of yoga and I realized it would take a LONG time to answer that question.
Right now, my counselling work fills most of my days. I wish I had a few more hours in a day to commit to teaching a public class regularly but currently I rely on the wonderful teachers of Victoria (who I sometimes sub for) when I am asked where people could practice the style of yoga I often find myself recommending. This style is usually restorative, honours each student, heals, and is steeped in compassion. When I meet people in a counselling setting (and actually it’s true for most human beings I meet!), what often emerges is a need for more introception (the ability to be deeply familiar with our internal state), a need for self care, time to listen to body and spirit, and a life that needs more gentleness. In my most recent post before this one, you will see that you can still make changes and grow in life, but it comes from a place of wholeness. Some of my favourite places in the city that embody these values are Moksana Yoga and Hemma. In particular, the teachings of Jenn Piercy and Misha Butot have been wonderful teachers in my own life and for many in our city.
I am often asked what I think about the Bikram style of yoga. This is a matter of much debate in the yoga world. I would want to start by saying that I thing every style of yoga has the capacity to have a wise, grounded, caring teacher and classes that offer the ability go inward and find peace, learning and grounding. I also think every style of yoga has the capacity to get a bit off track (even my dear restorative could have it’s moments!). We are all learning, we all trying to do our best.
One of the things that I love about yoga is the lineage of learning. I feel so much gratefulness for my teachers and their teachers. I love how the learnings have passed through the years, across borders and been shared. I have some tension with Bikram having trademarked his teachings.
One of the other things I love about yoga is that anyone can do it. You don’t need a particular space, outfit, body, or level of flexibility to practice. You need breath and to show up. That’s it. I have a longing for our community have more places where it’s financially do-able for more people to practice. (Watch for an upcoming post about a dreamy new studio in town that embodies these values!!!) I have some tension with how expensive Bikram’s is and how there is thought to be one way to do it.
I also love that yoga is about going inward. When I teach, I don’t see myself as someone who knows more about you than you do. My goal as a teacher (and actually this often mirrors my counselling practice) is to provide a space where each person can go inward and listen deeply to where their edges are (edge: the sweet spot where we are experiencing enough physical or mental sensation to learn but never ever moving into pain). I believe the teachings of yoga have much to offer, but that is always balanced with your internal knowing. Where I struggle with Bikrams is that I think it’s a style where one has to have a very robust sense of their own edges and a very strong capacity to stay internally grounded in order to benefit from the practice. The teachers have one way (and only one way) of doing each posture. In the other styles I’ve practiced, it would be just fine if your body / being craved something else to be doing your own thing in class. In Bikram if you tried to move in your own way, I think you might encounter some serious kick back from the teacher. It’s thought that this one series, this one way is the WAY to do it. Even things as subtle as closing your eyes are “moderated”.
I also see yoga as a whole practice. A physical practice can help inform our other learnings, but at it’s core yoga is (for me) about learning how to BE in the world. Yoga is about learning to tolerate life and ourselves, learning how to let go, and deep connection. The Bikram’s practice is probably one of the ones where the pull of the “physical body only” mentality is it’s most strong. I don’t think it’s the intention of the instructors, but in our western world, the mirrors, small outfits and overt physicality of it can make it a very slippery slope into being a “body only” practice.
That being said, there are some things I do find to be quite wonderful about the practice. I do go to Bikram’s classes. I know a lot of really great teachers in this city, and sometimes when I practice at Bikram’s I feel like I’m sneaking into the studio hoping no one will see me. When a student asked me the other day what I thought of the practice, I felt like it was such a complex answer because for people who might be in a place in life where they don’t have a deep well of compassion and strong internal compass (and a high dose of assertiveness), I don’t think it’s a great practice. It might be a beginners practice from a physical stand point, because you can do it without any previous experience but I don’t believe it’s an ideal ractice for people in a beginners mind (or a less grounded place? not sure on the right language for this!). People often think that restorative classes are “easier”. This is not my experience; for many of us, slowing down and paying attention is so very difficult. I have witnessed the energy in Bikram’s become sort of “purge”- like for some people and it can have a bit of a dogmatic approach that can become a bit obsessive and it can play a role in interacting with the ego in a way that, for me, doesn’t fit. If you are in a place that feels solid and grounded, the challenging aspects of the class can be motivating or help stoke the fire, but I get nervous for people who listen to all the instructions without paying attention to their own being.
Oh yes…I was saying what I liked about it. When I met with an ayurvedic practitioner, it was suggested to me that having some solid routine and predictability to my life would be helpful. The Bikram practice is the same series every single time. There is much room to grow in the postures and refine your movements but the repetition can become quite meditative and an opportunity to stop thinking. For me, with my constitution (especially in winter), I LOVE being warm. I could live in that heat. The Bikram studio is heated to 104 degrees. For some bodies, this is very lovely and for others it would not be very balancing.
I do like that the Bikram’s tradition asks a lot of you as a student. Again, if you are in a grounded place and feeling solid in this world, a challenge can be a great place to grow. For me, I do find the practice of tuning everything out (voices, dogma, sweat, etc.) and showing up for a 90 minute class to be a lovely challenge. My restorative practice has informed my ability to be in this place and I don’t know that my other practices would be as nourishing without a base of restoration.
The other factor you may want to consider, in choosing a practice, is knowing what you can commit to. There is no other studio that offers group classes at 6am, and I love mornings. I practice restorative at home in the mornings, but sometimes I really need a community of other practitioners. Living where I am, in Westshore, it is the best yoga community I have found out here (ahhh Moksana…when will you open a Moksana2 in the Westshore?). Also, I should say, that the studio I practice at is one of the most lovely I have tried in the Bikram’s tradition. The teachers are gracious and warm and the owners of the studio show their humanity.
So yes, I’m out of the closet as a Bikram’s yogini with very strong leanings to many other ways of practicing and a deep deep caution in recommending it as a practice.
If yoga is a life practice (not just a body practice) then we can expect that our practices may shift with us through our lives. I share pieces of my own process and learning here with you with a bit of caution, because I wouldn’t want you to think that my path is your path. You will know what feels best in your being. Try lots of teachers, listen deeply, be careful that you aren’t losing your own knowing in ANY practice, and see where your own edges are.
Beginnings and Endings
The end of a year and start of a new one is often a time that we reflect on the passages of our lives. It’s an opportunity to bring to awareness all of the facets of our lives and perhaps offers a particularly clear lens on things that are currently in transition (or things we *wish* were in transition!)
It’s gotten me thinking on the idea of beginnings and endings. I think these ideas tap into our human desire to make things neat and tidy. My experience (and likely one of the sentences I use most in my counselling practice) is that “humans are messy”. So, when the new year rolls around, sometimes we get this desire for a clean ending on a new beginning.
On Endings…
I’m not sure who coined the word “closure”, but I would like to have a firm conversation with this person. So often, I sit with people who want to know the answer to the question “what will it take for me to have closure on this?”. Certainly things can shift, feel differently, move, change and show up differently in our lives, but all of our experiences are a part of our fabric, part of our cellular make up, and will in some way weave throughout our lives. We might want to tie something up with a bow and say “that’s in my past, I dealt with that”, but we are always in relationships with it in some way. If we can accept that we don’t have to have everything totally figured out, sorted, and closed, then we release the pressure and we can just BE with ourselves. Many of the things people want to leave in the past, like grief, trauma, difficult relationships or choices we don’t love, are not things we can DEAL with, they tend to be things we can learn to BE with. In North American culture, we have this idea that we can DO something about anything that causes us discomfort. That’s just not true. On grief especially, people have this idea that if you don’t feel it “properly” in the moment, it will come back to bite you in the butt. My experience is that we feel things the way we do, when we do. When we don’t need to get closure, we can start to be with the stories about our lives that confuse us and just let them weave into our futures in the way they will naturally be. Doesn’t that take the pressure off of personal work when we don’t have to do it “right” or get “closure”?
On Beginnings…
New Year…New You! New Relationship…New You! New Body….New You! Pardon me for a moment while I tuck my soap box back under my desk so I can have this conversation with you, dear reader, from a gentle place. Consumerism has done one heck of a job suggesting to us that we can somehow become “different” through the purchase of a product or by morphing our physical being. Now again, I’m not suggesting that there aren’t times in life where we shift our energy, adjust our focus, or start to make choices that are more in line with our values. These are times of great wonder, where our inner selves and the way we live are lives come more into alignment. What is not so wonderful is the total overhaul mentality that sometimes comes along with the new year (and subsequent pain when the “results” aren’t realized) . I have a strong hunch that deep alignment is not found in a one size fits all (or none) diet plan, a bottle of supplements, or some glossy new conditioner / partner / career. So how do we approach personal change without getting trapped in this cycle of looking for “newness”? My suggestion is that the most important piece (I crack myself up when I imagine that I know what is “most important” for anyone…but I’m going to keep typing anyways!) is accepting where you at RIGHT NOW, before any changes. Any time we change from a place of feeling shame, guilt, or less than, we are dishonouring ourselves. There might be parts of where you are at right now that aren’t serving you, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. The self judgement that comes along with personal work can be very subtle and slippery. As Richard Miller said in a training I did with him last summer “Acceptance doesn’t mean inviting yourself to tea and then asking your guest to be different. It means accepting everything that comes through the door”. If we knew that where we are today, right now, is exactly the right place for today and that we must have made the best choices available to us to get here, then we can shift and adjust our actions from a place of compassion and wholeness. Once our whole self is invited to tea, deep alignment starts to become more clear and it bubbles up from deep within us (which is SO much more clear than what a magazine might offer us!).
One other note -Sometimes people have made choices in the past (or are still making them today) that have really hurt others or themselves. Compassion and acceptance can exist with with accountability. You can be accountable for your choices without having to be a bad person.
So, however the “New Year” is showing up for you, if you are taking inventory and considering adjustments in your life for the future and considering what you’d like to leave in the past, I would recommend that, as a starting place, you honour totally and completely the person you are today, right in this moment. This being likely doesn’t have “closure” on all the tough parts of life, and is likely gloriously messy and complicated. Welcome to being human!
Please note: the information on this blog is not intended to be therapeutic. Your own knowledge of self (perhaps supplemented by your own therapeutic relationships) should supercede advice or thoughts read on the internet.