Change

My current definition of yoga is "Everything changes, get over it."    Getting over it and accepting the changes in my body, my mind, my breath, my pain, my bliss, even what I think I know about yoga is my new normal.   That is where calming the fluctuations of the mind comes in--Chitta Vritti Narodha--Yoga Sutra 1:2.

"When are you going to get better?"   Someone asked me that.   It jolted me and made me question everything I was doing that showed this person I wasn't better.   I was completely put on the defensive.  I answered that I was improving slower than I liked but I was improving.  I then tried to walk away as normally as possible--not my new normal but some approximation of what I thought  I used to walk like.

Then I realized I'm asking myself the same question all the time.   I've fallen into the trap of using  every yoga practice as a reminder that I'm not well yet.  I have to walk my talk and learn to practice without frustration and judgment.

My self-judgment keeps me locked in my pain patterns and fighting against them.   If I  stay with my body, watching and accepting it as the good friend it is, I know I have the chance to influence the direction of change toward healing.

Aortic Valve Replacement Surgery

A lot has happened to me since I last wrote.   I'll be writing about it in pieces.   To start, I have to come clean and say that I've had a long time problem with my heart---I'm in my early 60's and was probably first diagnosed when I was 18.

It finally came to the point that my Cardiologist and the Cardiac Surgeon said the time had come and I needed to replace my aortic valve.   So on October 14th, 2014 I had open heart surgery.   It seems my heart didn't like getting carved up.  They told me I had an "angry heart" and after surgery I went into Third Degree Heart Block which ended up with me receiving a pacemaker.   Then I got a blood clot in my arm from that surgery.   To put it mildly, recovery has been way slower than I anticipated or wanted.

To say that this has impacted and changed my physical yoga practice is almost silly.   Everything is new and different.  The aortic valve surgery was open-heart and required breaking my sternum.   I'm just now, almost 3 months later, getting to the point that my sternum is considered healed enough to do some gentle poses.

So what has my yoga practice been?  Like Arjuna in the Gita, I learned concretely that the essence of Yoga is that shit happens and how you deal with it is the practice.  My practice has been meditation, awareness, a whole lot of acceptance and learning to breathe all over again.

Finding my new normal is my path and my heart is my guru.

All the heart metaphors and references in yoga have taken on new meaning as I work through the intersection of the physical and the symbolic.

The love and support I received from family and friends has been overwhelming and moved me to tears repeatedly.

More to come.

Namaste,

Dean