Resourcing the Revolution

Writing

I Am a World Changer (and My Time Has Come)

by Leave a Comment

RY-Manifesto

How can we expect to create a balanced, sustainable world for ourselves and future generations if those of us who are creating change are doing so in an unsustainable, imbalanced way?

Fellow change maker,

Our time has come.

For too long we have stood by, mired in the fight, watching as the world heaved in chaos around us. With each passing day we dug in deeper, clenched our teeth and put that much more of ourselves into the effort. As time passed, we found that the struggle was starting to wear on us, to create cracks in our strength, and we considered giving up. And we woke again the next morning with the enormity of our task weighing on us: “If not me, who? If not now, when?” We braced ourselves, took a deep breath, and shouldered our burden anew. We reassured ourselves with the thought that we were making a difference, laying ourselves on the line, giving ourselves up for the greater good.

Because, really. Our fight is important. Imperative, even. The future rests in our hands, and we have this moment, this fleeting opportunity to turn things around, to be the change we wish to see in the world. What could be more important? We are but one small piece of a grander vision and if we have to sacrifice ourselves to make the world a better place, that seems to be a worthy way to have spent this life…

Right?

But sometimes we get this flash of an idea, this glimmer that maybe things don’t have to be this way, maybe we don’t need to be martyrs for the cause. We hear a voice that raises the question: what if? We start imagining the possibilities, but then our old ways of thinking win out again, and our imagining turns to what will be possible after we win this fight, what could be, if only this one last step could be completed, this last set of conditions could be reached. If only. And we think – maybe we’ll get there one day, but not yet.

And again I say to you, fellow change maker: our time has come.

What if there is a better way to create the change we wish to see in the world, and what if it’s possible right now? What if we can step outside the current system and create a new possibility, a new paradigm?

I believe that the best way for us to bring positive change into the world is to create it within ourselves.

I don’t have all the answers, but we each have to start somewhere. I invite you to come along on this journey with me, where we can begin to discover a new way of bringing our positive change to the world by first cultivating it in ourselves. Together, we can find a simpler and more sustainable path to creating positive impact.

Gone are the days of us flinging ourselves upon the pyre of our cause, flaming brightly for but a moment before we are reduced to ash, used and burnt out, unable to continue on our path. What if, rather than burning out, we were able to create a sustainable path to change? Instead of the current revolving door model of change making (where on one end, fresh faced and energetic young dreamers come in the door and systematically turn into the jaded, burned out souls who come out the other side), what if we were able to create an ever-growing ocean of balanced, energized and empowered change makers?

My goal for the Rebel Yogi community is to reach out into the world, empowering thousands of world changers to improve their lives through yoga, while also creating a sustainable life balance as they make their lasting mark on the world.

This is the future that I see, the possibility that I believe in – and I can’t do it alone. I believe that, with yoga, we can change the world – and I see the possibility that we can create together by bringing the Rebel Yogi way of life to changemakers all over the world. Thank you for your company along the path, as we create this journey together. The community starts with you and our shared journey as we learn how to increase our impact in the world while decreasing the impact on ourselves, and then share those stories with each other.

I started working on the manifesto for Rebel Yogi back in February.

Yes, it has taken me almost seven months to finally give myself the kick in the ass I needed to get it finalized and out into the world. To be honest, I kept falling into the “all or nothing trap,” thinking that it had to be perfect before I could put it out into the world. Long story short, it’s been a struggle to ship.

Along with the manifesto, I have included the invitation that some of you may recognize from the funding campaign that I ran back in the spring. It felt fitting to share the words with you again, since the manifesto goes hand in hand with the invitation to join the Rebel Yogi revolution.

And, please share the manifesto far and wide. Our time has come!

Reflections on Giving Yourself Permission

by Leave a Comment

These days, I’ve been starting off my yoga classes with a reminder to my students: every time we step on to our mats, it provides an opportunity for us to practice being okay with both where and who we are at this moment.

It’s an opportunity to give ourselves permission to be okay, to take a look at ourselves (bumps, bruises, rough edges and all) and honor that this is the very best version of ourselves that we can achieve in this moment. There is nowhere else we have to be, there is nothing else we should be doing, and to expect more is doing ourselves a disservice.

What’s funny is that even though I speak this truth every time I sit down to teach, I have a really hard time following it in my own life. It’s a fairly classic “do as I say, not as I do” scenario, and it goes hand in hand with making excuses instead of just following my own advice and taking care of myself.

This is where I fall into the “not enough time” trap, or where I end up “trying to take care of myself” instead of actually doing it. We can make all the excuses in the world about why we can’t do certain things, many of them completely viable. But in the long run, we’re missing out on making a positive impact in our lives by making these excuses.

My question is: why in the world do we do it??

Why, when we know that we need to get enough sleep every night, do we cut corners and try to get away with the bare minimum? Why, when we know how good we feel after a yoga class or a good workout, do we procrastinate and end up skipping it? Why?

I think it’s because we’re human. We’re these inherently flawed, yet unimaginably wonderful and capable creatures who are wired for immediate gratification, and our human nature often wins out over the intellectual argument between our bodies and our minds.

And speaking of the mind… we often live so deep inside a constantly active, chattering, future-thinking, past-remembering clump of synapses that we forget about this moment. Remember in last week’s post where I compared the mind to a drunken, scorpion-bitten monkey? It’s no wonder we have such a hard time just being, much less being okay with where we are in this moment.

Toward the end of the last Skype call I had with my business coach, we touched on this subject. Between being in location transition and it being summer, I have the perfect opportunity to really settle in and do my own work. Instead, I’ve been beating myself up about all the things I should be doing, and the fact that I haven’t progressed as quickly as I would like in certain aspects of the business. Instead of being honest with myself, I claim that I’m “trying” to take care of myself. Instead of being proud of the things I’ve accomplished, I beat myself up over what hasn’t happened.

One of the things that I hold dear with Rebel Yogi is the chance to be transparent about the process. Yes, it sucks (a lot) to admit that I struggle as much as the next person. But my hope is that by laying open the dark side of the story, rather than just the bright and shiny side that is usually the only side of the story that makes a public appearance, we begin to see that we’re not alone. We are all on our own twisty journey – the yoga journey (of the self, through the self, to the self) – but we do have traveling companions along the way.

It’s the major reason I started the Changemaker Q&A series – to share the stories of those fellow travelers, to remind us that we’re all in this together. We all struggle, we all fall, and we all have this beautiful opportunity to smile anyway – to get back up after those falls, to dust ourselves off, to find the beauty in the struggle – and to find a way to be okay with where we are, even in the midst of that struggle.

So am I okay with where I am in this moment? If I’m being honest: most of the time, no. But I’m making an effort to be more aware of the times when I’m not, and taking those opportunities to pull myself out of the boiling pot of mind-stuff, to become present in the moment, and to just be.

Our lives are a work in progress. Let’s give ourselves a chance to open up to that idea, and maybe ultimately to be okay with it.

I’m in. Are you?

The Rebel Yogi Guide to the 8 Limbs of Yoga: Stillness

by Leave a Comment

This August I want to take you deeper into the full practice of yoga. This means that we’re going to explore the 8 limbs of yoga from the perspective of the worldchanger. I’ll do my best to help you answer the question “just what are these 8 limbs, and what the heck do they have to do with me?”

Over the last few weeks we began an exploration of Asana, the physical practice of yoga; Yama, the abstentions; Niyama, the observances; and Pranayama, breathing. We will now move on to the topic of stillness, which encompasses the last 4 of the limbs of yoga – Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhayah. Even though the last four limbs are considered to be the most important along the yogic path, they go deeper into practice and philosophy than I’m interested in taking you, hence the short and sweet recap. This will be our final chapter in this series!

We’ll look at the sanskrit for each of these four limbs first.

Pratyahara = withdrawal of the senses

In our seeking to still the mind, the senses often cause distraction. The eyes find things to focus on that bring thoughts to the mind, the nose smells things that cause us to feel hunger, the ears hear things that engage the mind… The senses are a gateway of sorts, allowing the outside world to come in. When we turn the senses outward, we take in the world, but if we allow the senses to draw inward, there’s nothing to distract us; this allows us to move on to the next limb.

Dharana = concentration

This can also be thought of as the binding of the mind to a single place, object or idea. Concentration begins to train the mind, getting us ready to meditate. When the mind inevitably wanders from that single focus, we bring it back – over, and over, and over again. In his commentary, Swami Satchidananda compares this process to training a monkey; in our Raja class during teacher training, our mind-monkey was often described as being drunk and stung by a scorpion. So give yourself a break when the mind wanders – it’s a tricky beast to train!

Dhyana = meditation

We reach the state of dhyana when concentration becomes effortless, and turns into meditation. What most beginning meditators are actually doing is just concentrating really hard; there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just the first step along a long path. During true meditation, it often feels as though time is transcended. An hour of meditation can feel like only five minutes has passed.

Samadhayah = a superconscious state / contemplation

Samadhi can also be explained as mental detachment or tranquility of mind. Edwin Bryant describes samadhi as when the mind is so fully absorbed in the object of meditation that it loses all notions of itself as a self-conscious, reflective mind.

These four final limbs are more internal than the first four. We have moved from external (the body and the breath, with Asana and Pranayama) to internal through the course of our exploration. What we find is that if the body is still, it is easier to make the mind still. Through the body, we can control the mind; the mind ultimately needs the body’s cooperation to accomplish anything.

So why is stillness important to us?

In our search for balance and quiet, it means we must first be still. We can’t hope to find relief for the high amounts of stress around us in the world while we’re running around like madmen. It’s when we become still and quiet that we begin to find that capacity within ourselves.

We sometimes get hung up on this idea that in order to “successfully” meditate that we have to sit down for 30 minutes or an hour. Then we think about all the other things we have to do, and we end up doing nothing. It’s like the “all or nothing” trap I wrote about a couple of months ago. But we’re going to start breaking out of that cycle, right?

Here’s my challenge to you:

Find a few minutes every day to just sit still. Find someplace you find beautiful, and just absorb the scene around you. Focus on the beauty, and see if you can’t let your mind be still for just those few minutes. Your to-do list will still be waiting for you after you’re done, but maybe you’ll feel a little more calm as you begin to tackle it.

If you find that even sitting still doesn’t work, take a look at the yoga nidra practice that I shared two weeks ago. 20 minutes, even just a couple of times a week, can help you to find complete stillness, and then maybe you will be able to find a little bit of silence in the mind as well.

It’s not going to be easy. Remember, we’re taming and training a drunk, angry monkey. But, it’s worth it – being able to find a moment of stillness and peace here and there can mean the difference between being over the top stressed out or being able to take that stress in stride. I shared a quote on Facebook last week that I think fits well with this idea:

Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

Like I said, it takes time, but the best time to start is now. One step at a time, one day at a time, one breath at a time. Find some stillness this week, and let me know if it changes anything!

These explorations of the Yoga Sutras have been fueled by both the Edwin Bryant and Swami Satchidananda commentaries.

The Rebel Yogi Guide to the 8 Limbs of Yoga: Pranayama

by Leave a Comment

This August I want to take you deeper into the full practice of yoga. This means that we’re going to explore the 8 limbs of yoga from the perspective of the world-changer. I’ll do my best to help you answer the question “just what are these 8 limbs, and what the heck do they have to do with me?”

Last month, we began an exploration of Asana, the physical practice of yoga; Yama, the abstentions; and Niyama, the observances. We now move on to the fourth limb of yoga: Pranayama, breathing practices. You may remember a post about breathing from earlier this year, and today I want to go deeper into this topic.

The literal translation of pranayama means control (ayama) of the life-force (prana).

If we take a look at the concept of Prana, we understand it to mean the energy that makes up the entire cosmos, the sum total of all the energy that is manifest in the universe. When we’re talking about this energy, we can reference physics for examples of our definition of energy: kinetic, radiant, potential, thermal, etc.

So, you may gather that pranayama goes a lot deeper than just breathing; it’s the regulation of the prana, which is achieved through controlling the breath, regulating our inhalations and exhalations. And, as in our asana practice, our breathing practice should be gentle, slow and fully controlled (no straining!).

Pranayama is incredibly beneficial, supercharging the blood with a fresh supply of oxygen, which then gets distributed through the entire body. It also balances the nervous system and promotes the elimination of toxins from the body. You can use pranayama to warm the body when you are cold, or to cool the body when you are overheated.

Pranayama is also an excellent way to prepare the mind for meditation. When you work on and focus your breathing, the mind begins to become calm and still; since the mind and breath are closely related, the mind can be calmed by regulating your breath.

As you may have come to expect from this series of posts, pranayama is closely tied to the other limbs of yoga. If you think back to our exploration of Yama, and more specifically Brahmacarya (the practice of moderation), it ties in with our use of prana. Prana gets wasted in many ways: moving the body and the mind unnecessarily, talking too much without any real purpose, overeating… But one of the biggest causes of wasted prana is high levels of stress. Anything you overdo causes you to waste prana. It would be like leaving your car with the engine running while you were home for lunch – why would you want to waste that fuel?

For this particular exploration, I also want to pass along some tips for how to practice pranayama:

  • Except for cooling breaths, all breathing should be done through the nose. The nose does some pretty amazing things; it warms, moisturizes and filters the air that goes into the body, which makes our breathing practice easier on the lungs. When we breathe out through the mouth, we release prana – and since our pranayama practice is about controlling the prana, it’s beneficial to breathe through the nose so we’re not losing any in the process.
  • When you’re just beginning to practice pranayama, keep the patterns of inhalation and exhalation even – three counts in, three counts out. Once your practice becomes more advanced, you can then think about starting to make the exhalations longer than the inhalations.
  • If you become dizzy, lightheaded or begin to strain, take a break from the practice, and return the breath to normal.
  • There’s no reason to rush! Building your pranayama practice takes time, and should never be done in a hurry. Because it impacts the heart, lungs and nervous system, it’s best to always be gentle in your practice and avoid any strain. (Remember our exploration of asana – steady and comfortable? That applies here, too.)

We have now worked our way through the first four limbs of yoga: Yama, Niyama, Asana and Pranayama. I hope that these explorations have been helpful as you begin to navigate your own yogic path. We will continue to build on the knowledge gained here as we bring yoga into our day to day lives, and begin to integrate it into our world-changing! As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments, and I’m always happy to delve deeper or have longer conversations around anything I write about here!

These explorations of the Yoga Sutras are being fueled by both the Edwin Bryant and Swami Satchidananda commentaries. This week’s post also draws from Swami Satchidananda’s “The Breath of Life: Integral Yoga Pranayama”.

How to Let Go and Relax (Even If You Think You Don’t Have Time)

by Leave a Comment

In this hectic world of to-do lists that stretch on for miles, appointments and meetings that take up too many of our working hours, and the general frenetic pace of life in the modern world, sometimes it can feel impossible to actually relax.

Relax? That’s the thing we do on vacation, right?

But given that somewhere around 50% of vacation days are left unused in the United States and two thirds of those on vacation still do work while they’re gone, it begs the question: when do you actually take the time to relax and recharge?

If our “time off” is no longer relaxing, how do we give our bodies the time they need to recharge?

Confession time: how much time do you actively waste on any given day?

Please note, I’m not talking about the stuff you do for fun, the things you do that you find relaxing, or anything that falls under the category of mindfully enjoying yourself. I’m talking about the “I’m bored and don’t have anything better to do, so I guess I’ll [fill in the blank]” – mindlessly surfing the internet, flipping through the channels, staring blankly at your smartphone…

If you added up that time, I bet that we could all find at least 20 extra minutes every day, or even every couple of days.

So why am I focusing on this seemingly insubstantial amount of time? Because actively using those 20 minutes, even a couple of times a week, can make a huge difference in your stress levels. Yup. You heard me right: changing the way you use a small chunk of your day can actually make a noticeable difference in your overall health.

One of the practices that I learned during my teacher training is a process for deep relaxation called Yoga Nidra. If you followed along while I was at the Ashram, you might recall that I didn’t sleep for the first 19 nights. I am convinced that the only reason I didn’t get really sick or have a complete mental meltdown was the fact that we were doing Yoga Nidra at least once a day.

The numbers vary depending on who you ask, but doing a Yoga Nidra session (which can be anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes long) can provide benefits equivalent to somewhere around four hours of deep REM sleep.

During Yoga Nidra, you don’t actually fall asleep – you hover in a state between waking and sleeping, in conscious awareness. And when you come out of a particularly good Yoga Nidra session, it feels… well, freaking amazing. I find that my experience leaves me somewhere in the middle of completely relaxed but also rejuvenated. You won’t have that same groggy feeling that you sometimes get from taking an afternoon nap, and your brain will be clear and ready to get back to work. Or, if you do a session right before bed, it can help you to fall asleep faster once your head hits the pillow.

Because I’m awesome, I want you to be able to experience the yummy goodness of Yoga Nidra any time you want. I recently recorded an audio version of the practice, and I’m giving it away for free*!

I think by now we’ve all realized that we can find at least 20 minutes a couple of times a week to do something awesome for ourselves. So do yourself (and me) a favor and go grab your copy of the recording. Give it a spin, and then report back. I want to hear the stories about how Yoga Nidra has impacted your stress levels!

 

* Technically for a trade, because we all know that nothing is really free. Sign up for my mailing list, and I’ll send you a copy of the recording! If you join the mailing list, I promise to only send you awesome things, and to never share your contact info with nasty spammers – scout’s honor.

Saving the People Who Save the World: Adventures in World Domination

by 1 Comment

Three weekends ago, I had the chance to hang out with over 3,000 of my favorite people. Those of you who have been following along for a while might recognize the World Domination Summit (WDS) as that place where I met a whole bunch of the people I’ve interviewed for Changemaker Q&A, or you may very well be one of those awesome people who came into my life due to WDS (hey you!).

I’m one of the old timers – those who have been in attendance at every WDS since the beginning. This was my fourth year at the event, but with one big difference – instead of being an attendee, this time around I had the opportunity to see behind the curtain and to serve on the Ambassador team. Given how many awesome people I’ve met during the event, and the number of opportunities that have arisen due to those connections, this year it really felt like it was time for me to give back.

If you’ve ever been to WDS, you know the energy that comes from being around thousands of world changers all in one place. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I distinctly remember standing at the front of the room during the inaugural event with my friend Brandon and getting the craziest goosebumps I’ve ever had; we were talking about the similarities in projects we had been involved with around the BP Gulf oil spill, and that connection was so powerful that it was like we were tapped into a power grid.

And, if you haven’t been to the event, take my word for it: it’s intense. I knew going in to the event that it was going to be a challenge to honor my own Rebel Yogi work – taking care of myself. I was scheduled out for three really long, intense days and if my history was any indication, I had to be very careful about listening to my body during the event.

I could feel it even from the first couple of hours at the pre-party on Thursday night: this was going to be a challenge. Being in the room with so much energy, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, I could feel my body starting to take on the tense edge that comes along with being in that kind of situation. Even breaking away for dinner with just a couple of other people, I could still feel the tightness in my gut when I got home.

The next morning dawned bright (er, dark) and early, and I got to Pioneer Square just after 6 am to start laying out yoga mats for the Great Namaste world record attempt. Five hours and 808 attendees later, the mad rush of the attempt was over but my day was just getting started. After doing registration for the Jonathan Fields RevolutionU Academy and sitting in on the talk, it was time to head over to meet and greet at the official opening party.

If you were there, you may have seen me dancing like a fool, high-fiving, cheering, and generally carrying on in the greeting-line of orange-shirted Ambassadors on your way in to the party. It was at about that point when I realized that I was starting to crash, hard. A little bit later, I found myself talking to an old friend, almost swaying from exhaustion, realizing that I hadn’t eaten since lunch. It was then that I made probably the best decision I had up to that point: I talked to our volunteer coordinator, asked if I could leave, and did. I took the bus back to the east side of the river, grabbed a healthy dinner and then headed home for a relatively reasonable bedtime.

Now, that may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but for me, this was huge! If it had been even last year, I would have ignored the signs that my body was giving me. I would have pushed through, probably not eaten until really late that night, and only managed to get a few hours of sleep. But, knowing what I do now, and knowing that I had two more really intense days ahead of me, I made the smart choice, and took it easy.

The next two days of the conference were a balancing act. I was scheduled to take lunch breaks, which I took advantage of. When asked to do something during my break, I politely let them know I needed to go eat. I had a backpack full of healthy snacks, and a water bottle that rarely left my side. I took a nap during my lunch break on Sunday where I crashed so hard that I drooled on myself. Yeah, classy, I know.

All in all, the weekend was another amazing experience. Getting to be an integral part of the experience for so many other people, giving out thousands of high fives and smiles, and seeing WDS from the other side was truly awesome. Did I push myself a little too hard? Probably. But, did I do better than previous years? Absolutely.

It’s like I have talked and written about on a regular basis: it’s all about the journey. We’re all learning as we go. We stumble and fall, and we learn from it; then we do a little better the next time around. This year’s WDS was a success for me. I had the opportunity to hang out with some of my favorite people in the entire world, to make new connections and to reaffirm how important the work is that we’re doing in this world. And, I heard the same thing over and over when I talked about what we’re doing with Rebel Yogi: “how can I get involved” and “wow, I really need that, when can we start?”

I came out of this year’s event both slightly exhausted and completely recharged. We are all doing such great work in this world – let’s keep it up, and keep finding our balance as we go along. We’re all in this together, and it’s going to be one hell of a ride.