By Elena Brower on October 28, 2011
Everyone who doesn’t know me well is a bit shocked by the fact that I have a bad temper, and everyone that does know me well knows that side of me well. I’m not proud, in fact, I’ve spent so much time being angry about my anger that the “feeling bad” has become its own brand of narcissism. The whole conversation around “I feel so bad, I’m so sorry, so sorry, oh so sorry” is just a way for me to get attention, again. I’m telling on myself again so the buck stops here.
Working with the life coaches at the Handel Group has brought all of this to the surface; more accurately, it was already at the surface, the coaches make me deal with it. At first, we designed a consequence of money: each episode of my temper cost five bucks, then fifty bucks.Then we chose the consequence of a can of Red Bull for each incidence of temper (I eat kale twice a day, so Red Bull, with all due respect to the Red Bull lovers, is straight-up punitive). Each of these consequences did slow me down, to be sure, but the anger isn’t gone.
Laurie Gerber, one of the coaches with whom I often lead seminars, pointed out that my trend of punitive consequences needed to end, and be replaced with some humor. That gave me an idea.
Listen here.
Every time I have a strong outburst, I have to sing that song to the nearest adult stranger, with Jonah present. It’s happened twice in a few weeks, and yes, it’s funny, but more importantly, my temper is losing steam because I know as soon as I feel the burn that I’m going to have to sing to a stranger.
However, the consequence is genius for other reasons. We make the sweetest human connections very time. For one, Jonah sees me forgiving myself and truly reaching into myself to get the impulse out. Then we get to bond with other caring humans who truly appreciate the intent behind the moment, and finally, we can look each other in the eyes with no artifice or wall between us, and feel the healing happening.
The most important part of the singing consequence is the silliness. The silliness is bringing me back to the real work of building trust and acceptance in myself, rather than the “Woe is me, I feel so bad” dialogue, which just distracts me from the real work of releasing the temper once and for all.
I’ll leave you with a little Mad Libs, to keep the silly going. For those of you who weren’t raised on Mad Libs, you simply fill in the blanks as instructed.
Then write this down and hang it everywhere.
My (insert your bad habit here)______________ was here to show me how to (any virtues, what you’d like to have in place of your habit) __________, ___________ and ___________.
Thank you, my (insert your bad habit here) _________________ for being my healing.
“My temper was here to show me how to love, be patient and teach about honesty. Thank you, temper, for being my healing.”
On November 5, Elena Brower will be co-leading a juicy workshop with Laurie Gerber of the Handel Group about why coaching improves my parenting, and how to release the assumptions and habits we’ve all developed about raising kids, in order to bring them up with elegance and intention. For details, click here.
Photo credit: Elena Brower
Read More By Elena Brower on July 20, 2011
Do you ever feel that you deserve more love? Or that the people close to you should do a better job of showing you love? We expect everyone – our teachers, our partners, our parents, even our kids – to give us love, to help open our hearts. For me this expectation of love was debilitating, and I was making myself into a victim. To tap into real love – from my family, my beloved, my child, my friends – I needed (and still need) to take the drama out. Once I read this sentence it was clear.
“If you want to know about love, forget all about love, and look for direction.” – G.I. Gurdjieff
Direction, in this phrasing, refers to your attention, your direction in your work, your behavior, your mind, your heart. Where there is direction, there is consistency, clarity and consciousness. And where there is consistency, clarity and consciousness, all forms of love (respect, caring, listening) emanate naturally. Direction can be the simplest boundary: a bedtime for yourself so you can stick to your plan of action the following day, a rule for yourself around being on time. Start small. All we need is a way to be proud of ourselves and all sorts of positivity follows.
We interesting humans mostly see ourselves as having clear direction, yet in most of our biggest choices in life there is an egregious element of happenstance, and a concurrent lack of that feeling of love. So I have two seemingly opposing proposals for all humans: read poetry, and get a life coach. Here’s why.
As a public school student in high school, landing freshman year at Cornell University in a roundtable-style poetry section limited to 10 students was a major privilege. I was one of 10 instead of one of 30, and each voice was instrumental to the conversation. Ever since, poetry holds me tight and will never let me go.
When e.e. cummings asks “since feeling is first/ who pays any attention to the syntax of things,” my mind and heart open, every time. When A.R. Ammons says that “… everything is magnificent with glory/ nothing is diminished/ nothing is diminished for me,” I’m reminded of that level of magnificence in everything I’m doing. Pia Tafdrup reminds me to “… open my eyes/ and consider the world: Mysteriously near, and crystal sharp.” Agi Mishol speaks for our silence, “You won’t be able to escape me/ I am the quiet in the disquiet of your bodies … I am the attentiveness found everywhere/ I rise out of you/ now.” And so I begin listening and locating my silence – again.
Reading poetry that’s tuned to that universal resonance is magical. Regardless of time or space, those sentiments plow directly into your heart and are etched as pivotal sensations. So when I began teaching yoga around 1998 (and since I had little understanding or trust in my teaching voice), I incorporated poetry into my teaching. For a long time I could only offer the heart, the history and the height of the yoga via the poetry. Immersed in Anusara yoga since 2000, poetry initially helped me create sacred space and articulate the heart via the postures, in ways that were relevant off the mat.
Recently when I was asked to teach a yoga class wherein I’d invite renowned poets to read to us at pivotal points during class, this circle was completed for me. I remembered how I’d needed to forget about trying to spread love and expect love as a teacher and instead look for direction to give my students through the alignment and the poetry. For a long time, that seemed enough.
Poetry held me aloft in times of certain self-sabotage; it gave voice to my states of being and pointed me toward my heart again and again. Poetry granted me a sense of universally connective direction early in my teaching, and still lives in my heart and my voice. The words led me toward a friendship with myself that is only now coming truly to fruition, 10 years later. But what I needed to fully manifest that friendship, and find my voice as it is now, was an actual map. Poetry opened the door to my heart, but just behind that door was another one, the one that had me keeping all sorts of secrets that I thought were protecting myself and others, and I had no way in.
Finding the work of the Handel Group gave me the keys to that door, by holding up a mirror on the fears that led to the secrets. Those past secrets (from little ones like smoking to big ones like cheating and lying), once unraveled in the process of coaching, have taught me how to tell the truth directly through my most intense and impeding fears. Confessing what I’ve hidden has led to healing, magical conversations with family and friends that I’d never dreamed of having, and revealed a sensation of love that I’ve never known.
To have the privilege of truly designing my life, by writing out my dreams and then bravely living into them, detail by detail, requires a quality of heightened but practical momentum. We have to practice having the craziest conversations and tell on ourselves all the time to have our most loving life, to be simultaneously receptive and proactive with elegance.
“To gain anything real, long practice is necessary. Try to accomplish very small things first.” – G.I. Gurdjieff
Photo credit: kiwikeith
Read More By Elena Brower on February 9, 2011
When I’m asked how yoga has impacted my parenting, I parse it down to one point, which every other type of work on myself has corroborated for the past 13 years. In every moment, I magnetize my own state. Translated: However I am behaving will be reflected in everyone around me, especially my kid.
There are many simple examples of this popular topic. If you’re happy, people smile at you. If you don’t trust yourself, nobody trusts you. If you’re paying attention, people around you pay attention. Every day, whatever apocalypse is happening inside of you will be magnified again and again in the people near you, until you handle it. Whatever you’re feeling, see how it’s returned to you.
Parenting is no exception. As a parent, we magnetize nothing but our own behavior in that of our kids. If I point my finger and yell, at his next play date my 4-year-old son points his finger and screams at another child when he’s frustrated. He would never know how to do that without my example, and he’ll never know how to be masterful without my example either. And when I manage to listen attentively and sit with him so he can comfortably invite me into his mind and his realm, I get attention, kisses, hugs and hilarity returned to me. So in every moment as a parent, we magnetize our own behavior in our kids. You get it. How does yoga help?
When I’m paying attention, yoga offers spaciousness to my experience of parenting. Most of the day, I can feel it close by, but I can’t touch it. How ridiculous is it that here I am teaching specifically about spaciousness for more than 13 years and I cannot seem to get past my own animal instinct to doubt and rush and be perfect at the expense of my son’s stability and confidence? So this is what I want to share here. Parents, use your yoga to cultivate your own brand of spaciousness. What does it mean to be spacious (hold space in your own body) and how can we do this through yoga?
In the poses, I want to respond to my body’s resistance with patience (the spaciousness I personally need) rather than reacting with self-doubt. This allows me to be more patient with myself, and learn how to hold that patience for my kid rather than worrying about what else I could or should be doing. And then I want to teach that process of holding space, which is really just a matter of learning to be expansive and more kind with myself, so the folks I’m teaching will be drawn to do that for themselves and their families.
The other day, I had a discussion with a friend about the Handel process, a life-coaching program wherein we’ve both learned how to design consequences for our angry outbursts around our kids. While the yoga practice has opened so much for me, the Handel Group’s aim-oriented, personalized action plans were the missing piece. Both my friend and I came from families where rage was present, and coaching helps us define the behaviors, own them and evolve them. What we came to in the conversation was super simple. Your kid, at any moment, is just showing you your own face. That statement stings, and it should. Make more space in yourself and your kid will receive it and reflect it back to you.
Paradoxically, this spaciousness is cumulative. When you cease doubting yourself and begin to hold that space for yourself, you are generating an indestructible quality of freedom within yourself that nobody can take from you. “Asanas (postures) catapult us out of our habitual minds and into the vast space within” – Christina Sell, the upcoming “My Body Is a Temple.” You’re practicing to prepare yourself for the unexpected, so that no matter what happens, you’re still the one who’s able to stand still and quietly, confidently, hold that space for yourself and for anyone nearby. You’ll catch glimpses of what it feels like to hold that space for your child, and those glimpses will become vantage points, places within yourself where you can stand and offer stability in your family, no matter what the context.
“When the inner state of the adult changes, so does the context for what the child learns … The state of the adult-child relationship is infinitely more important than the information or skills we adults so urgently wish to convey or teach. States are primary. They impact learning, performance, and wellness, at any age.” – from “Magical Parent Magical Child: The Art of Joyful Parenting,” by Michael Mendizza and Joseph Chilton Pearce.
And from “The Tao of Motherhood,” by Vimala McClure: “You can manage your children with strength. Mastering your own life requires true power.”
Photo credit: StephenandMelanie
Read More By Elena Brower on December 28, 2010
Lately I’m often asked how I find the energy to do as much as I’m doing. Initially I think about the laundry list of contributing factors to my energy level: master teachers who show me both my laziness and my worth; a yoga practice that grants me time and space inside so I can stop rushing and listen instead; a lot of water, omega-3s and acupuncture that keep my organs in clear communication; and dark leafy greens (I really do notice when I’m not eating those.)
But it’s a quality of vulnerability that gives me more energy than I ever thought possible. Allow me to explain.
For a long time I refused any vulnerability. The hard shell of that refusal created a major lack of integrity (as in, I lied to myself and others about very big things), a real anger management problem, and a deep, debilitating nervousness.
Enter Lauren Zander of the Handel Group. In 10 minutes, this woman made me extremely vulnerable – she dismantled my lies by offering her own versions, and she taught me why and how to be less judgmental and more available. She shined light on a litany of patterns and shadows I never knew existed. And she explained that I cannot force those closest to be vulnerable alongside me. If I want people around me to soften or shift, the only person who can do the work is me.
In “Observing Spirit,” Peter Rhodes says, “… there you are contending with yourself, and you may notice that other people are … not doing their Work at that time. If they freely express negative emotions or they blame you for something … in that situation what do you get to work on? Yourself! Work on your reaction to all of it. That is called ‘the burden of the Work,’ namely, to tolerate the negative manifestations of others – without irritation. Irritation isn’t a heavy or furious emotion; it’s just a constant judging of other people, whether their faults be slight or great.”
And my own constant judgment (and concurrent lack of vulnerability) was sapping my energy. I needed to try another way.
Enter the “Work.” The Work is about separating from our frustration and judgment. For a long time, it wasn’t clear what it really meant to “separate” from what seemed like an irrevocable part of my personality. I needed to know how to do that, and Lauren’s method made it clear.
I now keep a log of every time I become unnecessarily angry, irritated or irrational. This list breaks everything down into legible, digestible parts, which helps me separate from my typical reactions. Looking at the list feels very much like an ice bath – it hurts, but I’m wide awake. And (to finally get to my point) when I see it all written out, I’m completely vulnerable, which is to say: I’m ready to admit that I’m drained. I can see how much energy I’ve spent blaming everyone else for draining me, when it’s really just my own misspent attention.
More energy for your day isn’t something anyone else can teach or create for you. When we release the energy we’ve tied up being irritated, it’s ours to do with what we will. Vulnerability is really just a critical willingness to shift, and that willingness yields more energy. Total epiphany.
According to Genpo Roshi in the recordings, “From Student to Master Recordings, Part 2,” “God, Goddess, Koan, mantra, anger, fear, hope, faith … I become that on which I’m concentrating.”
Read More By Elena Brower on September 9, 2010
“The Reality of Being” is a newly released compilation of the writings and speeches of Madame Jeanne de Salzmann, one of the people called upon to continue the teachings of “The Work” after George Gurdjieff’s death. I’ll be quoting from this book for years to come.
One bit (that I’ve been sharing with a number of my classes recently) hits home with so many people.
“I begin to see that I live torn between two realities. On the one hand, there is the reality of my existence on the earth, which limits me in time and space, with all its threats and opportunities for satisfaction. On the other hand, there is a reality of being that is beyond this existence, a reality for which I have nostalgia.”
At first, this made me uneasy, and I didn’t speak of it in my classes until I’d unraveled it for myself a bit. Something like this was touching me, yet the juxtaposition of earthly existence and this “other” existence needed clarification. In the tantric world, we are decidedly not limited in this earthly existence. We are, however, meant to make the most of the earthly opportunities presented while we are here, now. What spoke to me, though, is the remembrance, the “nostalgia,” the yearning for connection to the most calmly centered, connected aspect of ourselves. It “calls to our consciousness,” according to Madame de Salzmann, “across all the disappointments and misfortunes, to lead to serve” the divine in ourselves, that “other” existence.
Serving the Divine in ourselves means serving the Divine in everyone around us, in everything we do. What does that mean, to serve the Divine, in anything or anyone? It means to bring our highest game to the table, to be still and powerfully choose our stance, to be, if you will, a Warrior of Light. It means to be great, forgiving, listening, and, most of all, present in this “earthly” existence.
Recently I’ve had a few e-mail exchanges with students around interactions wherein we are challenged by someone else’s fear-based insecurities. My various responses contain a certain commonality that I hope may be useful.
Based on what I’ve learned from Dr. Douglas Brooks, Hugo Cory, and the Handel Group coaches, anyone else’s action or assumption toward me is simply reflecting some state or behavior I’m hosting within myself. So when asked recently about what to do if someone is using you as a proverbial punching bag for her/his own insecurity, I offered two very simple options:
1. Mind your own reactions and remain courteous, calm, and centered.
2. Find the way in which you are treating that person as a punching bag for your own insecurity, even if solely in your mind, and address it in yourself. Then return to number 1.
What I recognize in others is always something I hold in myself. Now it’s a matter of the “Art of Attention”: Am I placing attention on some fear, or can I return, artfully, to the present moment and offer my best? The question comes down to dread or beauty. My choice. My powerful choice.
A wise friend of mine recently offered, “You’re allowed to change, and you’re allowed to enjoy who you’re becoming.”
In a recent moment of confusion, I was asked to deliver my beauty and power to that moment, instead of running away (which I’d already done, to a degree). I took 30 seconds (yes, I’m keeping track; last time it took at least three minutes, and in recent years it’s taken from 10 minutes to 10 months) to shift emphasis and deliver my beauty and my power in the form of my strong, steady presence, which was all that was needed.
I took hold of the situation by doing what I’d wanted done for me; I gave affection and attention. For so long I’ve wanted to stop the train of insecurity and rise higher. I’m finally certain of my capacity to adapt and bring light.
Photo Credit: Jessica Garro
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