April | 2014 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

I am slowly learning to be comfortable with my own imperfection. It’s not easy. I want to do things well, do them right. I put a lot of effort towards quality. I pay attention to every detail. I try so hard.

And it’s not working for me. I don’t mean that I’m falling short of perfection. What I mean is that it’s not workable, not sustainable, not healthy to try so hard all the time. It’s incredibly confusing and overwhelming when every single thing matters so much.

For example, for yoga teacher training next weekend, I have to create three vinyasas, a series of yoga poses that would take about 10-13 minutes to teach. Then next weekend, I’ll need to be ready to teach one of them to a small group. This is on top of our regular homework. I have been trying to get them finished for the past few weeks, but I’m struggling. I have the vinyasas created, but I think they are too long, and I haven’t had a chance to practice teach them or even practice them myself as much as I’d like.

I’ve done less yoga since I started yoga teacher training than I have at any other time in the past six years. I’ve also been struggling to keep up with a regular meditation practice. Yesterday when I was working, I started to feel that familiar panic — the tightness in my chest and throat, the floaty feeling in my head, the tension throughout my body, the tears that are always just on the verge of spilling over.

Then I remembered the Buddhist approach to renunciation. In other traditions, renunciation is about giving everything up, living a life of lack and restriction, but in Buddhism, it’s not that at all. Instead it’s about no longer rejecting or resisting. Renunciation is about saying “yes” to our life, exactly as it is. Pema Chödrön explains it this way,

The journey of awakening—the classical journey of the mythical hero or heroine—is one of continually coming up against big challenges and then learning how to soften and open. In other words, the paralyzed quality seems to be hardening and and refusing, and the letting go or the renunciation of that attitude is simply feeling the whole thing in your heart, letting it touch your heart. You soften and feel compassion for your predicament and for the whole human condition. You soften so that you can actually sit there with those troubling feelings and let them soften you more.

The whole journey of renunciation, or starting to say yes to life, is first of all realizing that you’ve come up against your edge, that everything in you is saying no, and then at that point, softening.

I’ve certainly been up against my edge these past few months, (years?). As I contemplate renunciation, I look for the places where I can soften, be more gentle with myself. The first thing that comes to mind is my yoga teacher training homework, and how tightening up around that, pushing myself, being critical and mean, beating myself up in relation to it isn’t at all what yoga is about. It isn’t what practice is about.

I let go. I take a breath and come back. I start again. I soften.

1. Sam is getting better. I’m almost afraid to outwardly celebrate, but inside I am all “praise Jesus!” I don’t even know how to communicate accurately what a big deal this is. I lost my first two dogs to cancer in the past four years. Two of those years I spent knowingly caring for a terminally ill dog. So when Sam started to get sick and no one could figure out why, I feared the worst. We took him to doctors and specialists for a year and no one could give us any answers. They were all stumped.

We started having conversations about how bad it would have to get before we’d let him go. Last week, we had an MRI scheduled to see if he had a brain tumor. He’d gotten to the point that he’d go an entire block at the beginning of our walk shaking his head, his back leg scratching at the air. We couldn’t hardly ever let him play with Ringo because that would trigger the same. He was so uncomfortable, and it was difficult to watch.

Finally, we took another approach, looked again at the possibility of a skin issue. Our vet found an overgrowth of yeast on his lips where he’s lost the pigment, using a testing method we hadn’t tried before, and we decided to take a chance, cancel the MRI and treat it for two weeks with antifungal cream. And it’s working! He hasn’t air scratched for at least four days. We can put on the medicine, really rub it into his lips, and it doesn’t bother him. He an Ringo roll around in the back yard playing, knocking teeth against teeth, biting each other all over, and nothing.

We plan to take him to see a Dermatologist at CSU’s Vet Hospital, to follow up and make sure that there aren’t things we could do, supplements and such, to ensure this won’t happen again. I am so so so grateful he’s better.

2. Daycare and training for Ringo. I’ve said it before, this boy is challenging. I am working harder than I ever have with a puppy, knowing it will all totally be worth it. We took him to his first day of doggie daycare Monday and even though he was a little scared and barking too much, he got invited back, called adorable and sweet, and he’s doing really well with training, which is most likely more about teaching us than him.

3. The noise of birds in the morning, a sure sign that spring is here.

4. The sound of the grade school playground at recess. We live just down the street from an elementary school and I love how at certain times of the day, if we are in the backyard, we can hear the play, the screaming and yelling.

5. Grapefruit juice. I’m obsessed with it right now. And lest you think I’m getting all healthy or something, I’m also obsessed with two bite brownies made with Belgian chocolate from Whole Foods.

Bonus joy: Walking together, all four of us.