familiarity

so its been quite awhile since i’ve posted. i’d love to say how i’ve just been so busy climbing, skiing and yogaing but that has nothing to do with it. really i’ve been super unmotivated for a bit. and when i am unmotivated there is usually something else going on. so after a few phone calls with some friends i got to learn something…. the holidays suck for me. i have been real down for a few months now, just kind of basting myself in some melodramatic gloom. and now, after some talks with friends, i find that i do this practically every winter.

huh

in a way thats real comforting to know. this melancholy really is not an effect of some current event. it has nothing to do with getting a phone call from that girl nor does it have to do with last months pay coming in late. it has everything to do with some internal cycle i am just now becoming aware of.

but it kinda sucks too. oh shit, its gonna come back again. there will be more winters. so i’ll just head south of the equator come october every year. great plan. i’ll get to travel again, stay warm, aaahhh. yup, i’ll just run away from it like i did for 5 years after college.

no, i am too familiar with it now to try and escape it. so for a few years now i’ve worked on it through therapy, meditation, yoga and relationships. or at least told myself thats what i’m doing. excluding therapy, that safe, private place where one can be utterly vulnerable, i have tried to push bad emotions away, not letting them taint my relationships or my yoga practice. i’d tell myself ‘you know this will damage your connection with (insert lady name here) and your working on (insert fancy handbalancy backbend here) so just keep it to yourself. you’ll be fine.’ my previous experience with this stuff will get me through it. it feels kinda like hiking. i’d be sauntering about, enjoying myself and peeking down into a valley. ‘thats where those rattlesnakes and swamps are so i’d avoid them. i’ve been down there before, its not that safe.’ but its the familiarity that get me in trouble. knowing that its dangerous gives me some resolve that in case i do happen to slip a little bit and end up lower on the slope, i can get myself out.

and thats what happened. i slipped a little. i became a tad complacent and took some time off from yoga. i walked downhill a bit but figured this trail will take me back up soon. without filling my time with something i do to take care myself i started focusing on all sorts of things out of my control and then obsessing about them. i’m not sure if any of you have ever been in a relationship but let me share a secret with you… if you want to get out of a relationship, focus on nothing but why your partner would want to leave you, then pretend like you’re doing something else with your time. presto!

so because of my then current focus i didn’t really want to come up the slope yet, there wasn’t much up there for me. next thing i know i wake up and there are some rattlesnakes real close to me. dammit, i thought, well, at least i can get myself out of here. thats the other great thing about being familiar with something, it gives you the confidence to deal with situations. you have the know how to take care of yourself. the downside though is that the situation is always new, old tools won’t always work and my tools are pretty old. moreover, getting out on my own meant getting out alone.

when i get down like this, i go to real dark places in my head. everything i’ve worked towards; emotions, work, asana, writing, all get undermined. ideas of self-harm spring up, immediately followed by very understanding but stern, no, that isn’t allowed. so i dwell in this state for awhile, usually alienating people i care about simply cause i’m too frightened to ask for help. and then i’m out of the snakepit but with a few less people nearby.

so this time i tried to make some new tools. i killed a few rattlesnakes and packed them up. i sent a letter revealing some stuff about me that i’ve been to scared to share. this letter helped start a conversation where i actually told someone i needed her help right now. and i got it. my imagination told me she’d have better things to do, she told me she wanted to stay on the phone.

last night i went to a yoga class. a real small one, 3 people. the instructor told us we’d be doing a series based on a shiva rea practice that focuses on the emotions that come up in certain asanas. great, some uberflowy, tranced out bullshit. yeah i was in a good spot. there were going to be mantras involved, ugh. totally open to new experiences. the mantras were in english and coupled with certain postures, ‘i am loving (insert whatever you want here), ‘i am receiving (something), and some others that i don’t remember, nor do i remember the asanas linked with the mantra. i do remember feeling totally absorbed in the practice. i haven’t done a lot of yoga for awhile, but i’ve been craving backbends for obvious reasons so when we went from pigeon to king pigeon i was totally tranced out. all the little familiarities felt welcoming and compassionate. what i do remember though was thinking of all the times i’ve had people tell me that sometimes they start crying during asana. how emotions are stored in the body and then released without warning. coming out of king pigeon i felt myself crying for the first time in a yoga class.

vulnerability is big theme for me and my practice. i forget though that sharing experiences from the past is the safest, most shielded way to be vulnerable. those experiences helped build me but they are dead now, memories. being able to maintain openness and trust when things are raining down is what i think of being vulnerable.

so next winter i need a plan, no escaping or hiding. no solo hikes to snakepits.